Biden did NOT discuss migration with Mexican president during summit

Joe Biden did not discuss the southern border in his meeting with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador during their summit in Mexico this week, saying there was “no time” to discuss the historic crisis.

The southern border issue was kept off the agenda at the Three Amigos Summit in Mexico City, Mexico on Monday and Tuesday, people familiar with the matter. told Bloomberg.

It seems that because a private conversation between Biden and López Obrador was long, the following official meeting left the group with less time than expected to discuss the issue of the US-Mexico border.

The pre-meeting talk apparently touched on migration and the border, but it’s unclear how much detail they went into on the subject.

The official meeting seemed to focus mainly on drug smuggling and supply chain issues.

The trip to Mexico for the ‘Tres Amigos Summit’ followed Biden’s first trip to the southern border after two years of pressure from Republicans.

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has repeatedly criticized Republicans for exacerbating the crisis on the southern border.

Biden is “trying to fix” the border crisis, he told questions about his solutions following his trip to the border on Sunday and subsequent meetings with Canadian and Mexican leaders.

“When it comes to migration, irregular migration, obviously that was a key topic of discussion,” Jean-Pierre insisted at his press conference on Wednesday. ‘President Biden discussed ways our countries can continue to work together and address irregular migration. So that conversation certainly happened, at length.

The president’s official meeting with López Obrador, known colloquially as AMLO, included more than two dozen of his top advisers, including Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

Attendees, officials and the two world leaders spent much of their North American Leaders Summit meeting discussing supply chain issues and drug smuggling, according to officials.

The elephant in the southern border room, however, was not discussed at all due to time constraints.

Most Republicans would argue that the most important issue Biden needed to raise with AMLO and his cabinet was solutions to quelling the massive numbers of migrants flooding the US southern border through Mexico.

Biden met with AMLO (center) and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (right) during the North American Leaders Summit in Mexico City, Mexico earlier this week.

Biden insisted that he and AMLO discussed migration during a limo ride from the airport after they arrived in Mexico City.

“We spent a lot of time talking about it,” Biden said Tuesday during the news conference that wrapped up the Mexico City summit this week.

AMLO also said that the three leaders “did talk about migration in a very broad way.”

He also indicated that there were frictions between the leaders over the issue of migration on the southern border that the US shares with Mexico.

“I have asked President Biden to insist before the United States Congress to regularize the immigration status of millions of Mexicans who have been in the United States working, living in the United States and contributing to the development of that great nation,” said the Mexican president. . saying.

Biden’s private meeting with AMLO came just after his first visit to the southern border as president.

A long line of migrants, mostly from Venezuela and Cuba, walk back to Mexico after being removed from the US under Title 42 on January 9.

He went to El Paso, Texas to inspect the physical border barrier and the border community. Several critics say that because the city was “sanitized” before the president’s visit, Biden was unable to see the full extent of the crisis after he postponed the trip for nearly two years.

The president’s visit to the border finally came after immense pressure from Republicans for the president to crack down on migration as numbers hit new highs and showed no signs of stopping.

Just days before the trip to the border and Mexico City, Biden announced new measures to address migration, including an agreement with the AMLO government to expand humanitarian parole programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. It would allow these immigrants to come directly to the US from their home countries instead of traveling through Mexico to cross the border illegally.

AMLO praised the announcement at a press conference, calling it a “light in the tunnel.”