The president of the United States, Joe Biden, has responded to the letter sent a month ago by his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, about the urgency of tackling irregular migration together. Biden has assured that among the priorities of his agenda, with the consequent budget, is the promotion of social programs for Central America with the sole objective of dissuading them, preventing them from “fleeing their homes.” In the same sense López Obrador referred in his first letter, sent in the midst of the crisis of thousands of migrants stranded north and south of the Mexican borders, one of the worst migratory collapses in recent history. “We are stronger when we work together,” Biden remarked.
The two leaders have focused on accelerating social programs aimed mainly at El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, from where the majority of migrants are who for decades have risked their lives crossing Mexico to cross to the only destination with opportunities for a better life. USA. On this point, López Obrador boasted one of his star projects applied in Chiapas, Young People Building the Future and Sowing Life. Two plans that consist of, the first one in employing 30,000 young people with a minimum wage for their training in different trades; and the second, to plant 200,000 hectares of fruit and timber trees that, according to official information, gave work to some 80,000 peasants with a salary to cultivate those lands. The Mexican president asked Biden for help to bring these two projects to the Central American countries.
On this point, Biden has remarked that his country has allocated more than 600 million dollars “in international assistance” to the Central American triangle. And in addition, it has requested an additional 861 million for the same purpose. “Through a variety of programs, we are addressing economic insecurity, inequality, the fight against corruption, security, and gender-based violence in Central America: challenges that drive people to make the difficult decision to leave,” he insists the American president in his reply letter.
The two leaders seem to agree that containment at the borders is of little use – “the unnecessary border wall,” Biden stressed – if they do not insist on solving the causes in the countries of origin. If hunger, violence and lack of opportunity jump any fence, they cross any river. “Your letter mentioned the need to raise the living standards of the most vulnerable in our region – a goal that I deeply share,” says Biden.
López Obrador was specific on a point that Biden has not clarified. The Mexican president directly requested that they be granted temporary work visas: “The great challenge that you have assumed with exemplary responsibility to modernize communication routes, build schools, hospitals, sports centers, housing, and other works or services, will require a a great army of construction workers and it is likely that to make it up the labor of Central American migrants will be needed, ”proposed López Obrador. For his part, Biden has been ambiguous: “We are working to improve processing and to better identify people who have legitimate applications for asylum and other forms of protection, while quickly weeding out those who do not.”
Despite the promises and pacts of both presidents, the reality is that dissuading thousands of migrants, not only Central Americans, but also Haitians, Cubans, and Venezuelans, from staying in their countries of origin is somewhat utopian. The reality is that despite the outbursts of former President Donald Trump against migrants, including Mexicans, to the construction of the dreaded wall, Biden’s policy almost a year into his mandate has not led to a shift in immigration strategy. Quite the opposite.
Perverse measures for asylum seekers have not been reversed, as the agreement reached with Mexico is still in force, which forces many of them to wait for their request from a United States court on the other side of the border, regardless of nationality. The famous Stay in Mexico (Remain in Mexico) is also added to the notable increase in arrests, more than 1,245,000, 172% more than in 2020 and 27% more than in 2019, when Trump ruled with an iron fist, according to official figures.
The images in mid-September of the collapse of the border with the United States by thousands of Haitians trying to cross the Rio Grande, which borders Texas, and the harsh repression of the US border patrol, once again exposed the cracks of an immigration policy that in practice it seeks to contain and persecute those fleeing poverty. Mexico has fulfilled all the mandates of its northern neighbor since Trump ruled and has become a gigantic wall to stop the growing wave of thousands of them, assuming both its northern and southern municipalities – which involve the entrance – an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
Some towns such as Tapachula (Chiapas) or Ciudad Acuña (Coahuila) are overrun by thousands of stranded migrants, with no other mission than to ask for refuge in Mexico and wait for a resolution that can last up to a year. The authorities in charge of the procedures, such as the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid, with a lower budget in relation to the growing demand, are working hard to regularize more than 100,000 foreigners who estimate that this year they will cross the country. And meanwhile, these rural municipalities in the south or dependent on American manufacturing in the north, observe how their streets have become a refugee camp with little international aid, no white tarps and no strategy other than abandonment.
The violence in Central America has not stopped, after years of diplomatic rapprochement, before with the Trump administration and now with that of Biden. Neither has the hunger and misery brought about by natural disasters, in Haiti or Honduras, and recently by the economic crisis resulting from the pandemic. Every year there seems to be more reason to flee.
Biden and López Obrador face one of the greatest immigration challenges in history and they have committed to doing it together. The urgency mentioned by the Mexican president to nip the problem at its roots is in line with the priorities of his US counterpart. Something that did not happen with Trump, a diplomatic policy against migration based on threats and blackmail. “Our past and present are intertwined, as well as our future. I know that on this solid foundation of association we can approach this regional challenge in a way that remains firm, with the hopes that each one has for our countries ”, Biden concluded in his letter.
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