Mexico's president is willing to help with border migrant crush but wants US to open talks with Cuba
MEXICO CITY — Mexico's president said Friday he is ready to help with the surge of migrants that has led to the closure of border crossings with the United States, but he wants the U.S. government to open talks with Cuba and send more development aid to the migrants' home countries sends. .
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's comments came a day after the US announced that a delegation of top US officials would visit Mexico for talks on how to enforce immigration rules at the two countries' shared border.
Also Friday, U.S. authorities reopened two cross-border railroad crossings in Texas, while operations at other crossings remained limited or suspended. And figures released Friday show that the number of arrests for crossing the U.S. border from Mexico was 1.2% higher in November than in October, one of the latest signs of what Troy Miller, acting U.S. Customs and Customs Commissioner border protection, described this week as 'unprecedented' migration flows. .
López Obrador confirmed that U.S. officials want Mexico to do more to block migrants at its southern border with Guatemala, or make it more difficult to move through Mexico by train, trucks or buses, a policy known as “conflict.”
But the president said that in return he wanted the United States to send more development aid to the migrants' home countries and reduce or eliminate sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela.
“We are going to help, as we always do,” López Obrador said. “Mexico is helping to reach agreements with other countries, in this case Venezuela.”
“We also want something to be done about the (US) differences with Cuba,” López Obrador said. “We have already proposed to President (Joe) Biden to open a bilateral dialogue between the US and Cuba.”
“That's what we're going to discuss, it's not just a twist,” he said during his daily morning press conference.
Mexico is apparently offering to negotiate with Venezuela, whose population makes up a large part of the flow of migrants at the U.S. southwestern border. That surge has led U.S. officials to move immigration officials from two border crossings in Texas that are critical to Mexico's economy.
López Obrador has long opposed U.S. sanctions on Cuba, whose migrants are also streaming toward the U.S. border. And Mexico's president has long pressured the United States to contribute to a tree-planting program and youth scholarship and apprenticeship programs he is pushing for Central America.
López Obrador said the development aid will help reduce residents' need to migrate.
The meetings between Mexico and the US come as Republican and Democratic lawmakers debate changes to border policy as part of a larger conversation over US aid to Ukraine and Israel, which are top foreign policy priorities for the White House .
Pressure on Mexico increased after the closure of two railroad crossings in Texas earlier this week. U.S. officials said staff assigned to the sites had to be redeployed to help large numbers of migrants crossing the border illegally. Mexican companies warned that the closures were hampering trade.
Texas railroad crossings in Eagle Pass and El Paso reopened Friday after widespread backlash from U.S. and Mexican companies, but a border crossing remained closed in Lukeville, Arizona, and operations in San Diego and Nogales, Arizona were partially suspended. The closures were made to reassign officials to help process migrants.
López Obrador spoke by phone with Biden on Thursday and agreed that additional border enforcement is needed so that crossings can be reopened, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
Kirby said Biden has asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and White House Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall to travel to Mexico for talks with López Obrador and his team.
A U.S. official said the trip would likely take place the Wednesday after Christmas.
“Their visit will really be about mapping migration flows and talking to President López Obrador and his team about what else we can do together,” Kirby said at a White House briefing.
In November, the Border Patrol made 191,113 arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico, or a daily average of 6,370, the parent agency announced. That is 8% less than November 2022, but the fourth monthly increase since July. US authorities reported rising numbers in December, with arrests exceeding 10,000 on some days.
Mexicans were the largest nationality in November's arrests, followed by Guatemalans, Venezuelans, Hondurans and Colombians. Nearly 4,800 Chinese were arrested, mostly in the San Diego area.
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