Politics

Lopez Obrador and Blinken meet in Mexico to discuss migration

Mexico City, Dec 27 (EFE).- Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Wednesday to address the resurgence of migratory flows that led to the closure of border checkpoints for several days in the last month.

The emergency meeting at the National Palace in Mexico comes as a caravan of more than 6,000 migrants of over twenty nationalities advances from Mexico’s southern border, where they are asking both governments to agree on measures to allow their transit.

The US delegation, led by Blinken, also spoke with Mexican Foreign Secretary Alicia Bárcena, although López Obrador denied in the morning that the purpose of the meeting was to tighten immigration controls.

The encounter has been shrouded in secrecy, and sources consulted by EFE assured that there would be no public messages from the officials, as is customary with official American visits.

The meeting, scheduled just a week ago, was called to discuss, mainly, the new upsurge in the flow of people from Central and South America and the Caribbean seeking to reach the US through Mexican territory.

López Obrador insisted during his morning press conference that the US Congress should invest in addressing the causes of migration instead of building walls.

However, he pointed out that he appreciates the President Joe Biden’s immigration policy for offering work visas.

Meanwhile, the US is seeking help from the Mexican government to stem the tide of migration and deal with the record number of people trying to reach US territory, especially in light of the upcoming presidential elections in November.

Prior to the meeting, the Mexican Foreign Minister commented in brief statements to the media that the meeting “will be very good, it will be excellent.

“We have many things in common,” she said before entering the National Palace.

The visit comes amid historic numbers of people trying to enter the US at the border with Mexico in December.

On Tuesday, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed the arrival of more than 2.2 million migrants between January and November.

Moreover,the meeting happened amid the advance of a migrant caravan that left on Christmas Eve towards the United States with almost 10,000 people, the largest seen this year.

The meeting was attended by the Secretary of Defense, Luis Crescencio Sandoval; the Secretary of the Navy, Rafael Ojeda Durán; the Secretary of Security, Rosa Ila Rodríguez; the Secretary of the Interior, Luisa María Alcalde; and the Mexican Ambassador to the United States, Esteban Moctezuma.

The U.S. delegation included the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas; the Presidential Advisor for National Security, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall; and the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, among others. EFE

csr/mcd

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