The United States seeks to contain migratory pressure on its border with Mexico at all costs.
The president, Joe Biden, plans to travel this Thursday to Brownsville (Texas) the same day that his probable rival in the November presidential elections, Donald Trump, goes to another point on the border, Eagle Pass, also in Texas.
This Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken will host a trilateral ministerial meeting on migration with Guatemala and Mexico.
“Secretary Blinken will lead a discussion focused on actions to strengthen the humane management of migration, joint collaboration to address the root causes of irregular migration and displacement, and ways to expand legal pathways in the Western Hemisphere,” The State Department indicated this Tuesday in a statement.
Blinken, who will be accompanied by the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas and other US officials from different departments, will receive the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, Alicia Bárcena, and the Foreign Minister of Guatemala, Carlos Martínez, in Washington.
The United States and Mexico have already had a meeting this year in which issues such as standardizing migration figures, combating human smuggling networks and a plan to address the arrival of immigrants through the dangerous Paso del Paso have been established as goals. Darien in Panama.
United States immigration policy has tried under the Joe Biden Administration to address the root causes of migration, create legal routes for migrants to the United States and toughen the law for those who break the rules, but that mix has not worked and is They have broken records for irregular arrivals of immigrants to the country.
Biden has tried to relieve the border by authorizing permits for migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti and Cuba.
The United States Government has also set up offices in Colombia, Guatemala and Costa Rica, where those interested in starting the trip to the United States can process their applications.
Arrests for illegal crossings fell by half in January, following record highs in December.
In January, in his last meeting with Bárcena, Blinken greeted the “great progress” that was being made and the milestone that the inauguration of social democrat Bernardo Arévalo in Guatemala represented for immigration collaboration.
His arrival to power opens up, in Blinken's opinion, “an important new area of cooperation on migration” between the three countries.
“We will continue to collaborate more broadly to develop regional solutions to this historic challenge we face,” he said in January.
Biden himself called the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, earlier this month to talk especially about the border.
The US president expressed his gratitude for Mexico's operational support and for the adoption of concrete measures to deter irregular migration.
Both reiterated their shared commitment to strengthening our joint efforts to combat transnational criminal organizations involved in the illicit trafficking of drugs, weapons and people, according to the summary of the call released by the White House.
Immigration has displaced the economy as the star issue of the political confrontation between Republicans and Democrats.
This Thursday, Biden is the protagonist of his second visit to the border as president, after the visit to El Paso in January of last year.
The White House announced the trip this Monday after publishing information about Trump's visit to Eagle Pass this Thursday.
Trump's pressures have derailed a bill that included aid to Ukraine and Israel, but also reforms to curb illegal immigration on the border with Mexico.
The border measures were initially a Republican demand to give the green light to aid to Ukraine and Israel, but when push comes to shove, they have preferred to take a step back and continue using the migratory flow as an electoral weapon.
Biden is analyzing the possibility of approving a decree with some measures to make the passage of immigrants more difficult or facilitate their expulsion.
Among the measures being considered by Biden's team is invoking the powers under Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives the president broad latitude to block the entry of certain immigrants if necessary. was “detrimental” to the national interest.
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