Blinken and Mayorkas visit Mexico as enormous caravan of migrants heads north from South America

A high-level delegation of U.S. officials flew to Mexico on Wednesday to address the record number of people crossing the border illegally as a caravan of about 6,000 migrants moves through the country.

The visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is widely seen as a chance for the Biden administration to increase pressure on Mexico to tighten border security ahead of next year’s presidential election.

But Mexico’s president was the first to respond, saying the U.S. Congress should offer more aid to Latin America rather than “build walls.”

Andrés Manuel López Obrador also warned his guests that the political problem would only worsen ahead of the 2024 elections.

“The migration problem will get worse,” he said.

Blinken was scheduled to arrive in Mexico City at a time when Border Patrol agents were encountering more than 10,000 people a day trying to cross the border.

Both sides in the talks are facing pressure to reach an agreement after previous steps, such as limiting direct travel to Mexico or deporting some migrants, failed to stem the influx.

The U.S. has struggled to process thousands of migrants at the border and house them once they reach northern cities.

Mexican industry was hit hard last week when the U.S. briefly closed two vital rail crossings in Texas, saying Border Patrol agents had to be reassigned to cope with a surge in shipments.

Another non-rail border crossing remained closed at Lukeville, Arizona, and operations were partially suspended in San Diego and Nogales, Arizona.

The US delegation made clear that efforts to deter lawbreakers would allow the crossings to reopen.

“Secretary Blinken will discuss unprecedented illegal migration in the Western Hemisphere and identify ways Mexico and the United States will address border security challenges, including actions to reopen key ports of entry across our shared border,” his office said ahead of the trip. .

President Joe Biden spoke with his Mexican counterpart last week to discuss the crisis and stress the urgency of fighting it.

Mexico says 680,000 migrants were detected passing through the country in the first 11 months of 2023.

Mexico has deployed more than 32,000 National Guard troops and officers (about 11 percent of its total force) to enforce immigration laws, and the National Guard now apprehends far more migrants than criminals.

But the shortcomings of that approach were demonstrated Tuesday when National Guard officers made no attempt to stop a caravan of about 6,000 migrants, many from Central America and Venezuela, from passing through the main immigration checkpoint inside Mexico in the southern state of Chiapas near Guatemala. border.

Mexico used to let such caravans through, believing they would tire themselves out walking along the highway.

By Wednesday, Lazara Padron Molina, 46, of Cuba, was sick and exhausted. The caravan set off on December 24 from the city of Tapachula and traveled about 45 miles in the heat to Escuintla in southern Chiapas.

“The route is too long to continue. Why don’t they just give us documents so we can take a bus or a taxi?” Said Padron Molina.

“Look at my feet,” she said, showing the blisters. – I can’t go on anymore.

But harassing migrants—by forcing Venezuelans and others to walk through the jungle-clad Darien Gap or kicking migrants off passenger buses in Mexico—doesn’t seem to work anymore.

So many migrants were traveling on freight trains through Mexico that one of the country’s two largest railroad companies suspended train service in September due to safety concerns. Police raids to pull migrants from train cars – an action taken by Mexico a decade ago – might be what the US delegation would like to see.

A few blocks from Mexico City’s main square, where Blinken will meet Lopez Obrador at the national palace, the migrants stayed in a makeshift shelter at a church, gathering strength before continuing north.

David Peña, his two daughters and his pregnant wife, Marieris Zerpa, were hoping to reach the United States before the baby’s birth in about a month.

“The goal is to get across the border so the baby can be born,” Peña said. But without an asylum application, he had no idea what the family would do.

Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall will also attend the meeting.

The US has shown that one country’s problems at the border quickly become both countries’ problems. Railroad closures in Texas blocked freight traffic from Mexico to the U.S., as well as grain needed to feed Mexican cattle moving south.

López Obrador confirmed last week that U.S. officials want Mexico to do more to block migrants at its southern border with Guatemala or make it more difficult to travel within Mexico by train, truck or bus. This policy is known as “discord”.

But the president has said that in return he wants the United States to send more development aid to migrants’ countries of origin and reduce or eliminate sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela.

“We are going to help, as we always do,” López Obrador said. “Mexico helps reach agreements with other countries, in this case Venezuela.”

He said Mexico proposed to President Joe Biden to open a bilateral dialogue between the United States and Cuba.

In May, Mexico agreed to accept migrants from countries including Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba who had been rejected by the United States for failing to comply with rules providing new legal routes to asylum and other forms of migration.