U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and other U.S. officials met with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador yesterday to discuss the surge of migrants traveling through Mexico to illegally cross the U.S. southern border.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said, “Their visit will really be about getting at the migratory flows and talking to President López Obrador and his team about what more we can do together.” The U.S. faced pressure from Mexico to reopen border bridges and rail bridges after federal authorities closed crossings in two Texas towns when illegal crossings increased to 10,000 people per day.
U.S. and Mexican officials reached an agreement to reopen the border crossings, López Obrador said. “This agreement has been reached, the rail crossings and the border bridges are already being opened to normalize the situation.” The rail closures stopped freight from entering the United States and stopped grain being exported for feeding livestock in Mexico, causing economic losses exceeding $200 million per day, according to Union Pacific.
Mexico reports that 680,000 people traveled to the U.S. through their country in the first 11 months of 2023. This week, Mexican National Guard soldiers made no attempt to stop over 6,000 people from illegally crossing Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala.
In response to the U.S. request that Mexico block migrants from entering that country’s southern border, López Obrador is proposing the U.S. enter talks with Venezuela, where many of the migrants are coming from, saying, “Mexico is helping reach agreements with other countries, in this case Venezuela.” He is also using the border talks as leverage for diplomacy with Cuba, saying, “We have already proposed to President Biden that a U.S.-Cuba bilateral dialogue be opened.”
