United States | Biden will visit the Mexican border for the first time, where two central crises are brewing

of the United States president Joe Biden arrives in El Paso, Texas, on Sunday, just days after he announced new measures on Thursday to crack down on illegal border crossings.

It is the first time that Biden has visited the Mexican border as president, which has caused him a lot of headaches in the past two years. Biden promised his voters a “humane immigration policy”, but already in his first term as president, the border formed humanitarian crisisi, when migrant children traveling alone were kept in processing centers in harsh conditions due to a lack of resources in the spring of 2021.

Now, the number of people crossing the US southern border has again reached record numbers, and in December, the Democratic mayor of El Paso declared a state of emergency, when hundreds of migrants slept on the cold streets and daily arrests of illegal immigrants were recorded in the thousands, reports the news agency Reuters.

According to the news agency, the U.S. Border Patrol recorded a record 2.2 million arrests at the Mexican border in the fiscal year 2022, which ended in September, reports the Reuters news agency. El País Spanish magazine according to the report, there were more illegal border crossings than ever since the Second World War.

Partly the high number is due to the fact that people who have been deported under Section 42 of the Health Act have tried to cross the border several times.

BideniN predecessor Donald Trump introduced section 42 during the corona. According to it, an entrant who endangers the general state of health can be deported from the border right away.

Before last year, Mexico accepted citizens of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador deported by the United States. Last October, Mexico also started accepting Venezuelans deported by the United States.

On Thursday, Biden announced, according to Reuters, that the United States will also start deporting Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans under Article 42 in the future. At the same time, he said that the United States legally admits 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans every month.

Already in October, Biden had told about the quota of 24,000 humanitarian visas for Venezuelans, El País reports.

30,000 immigrants who arrive legally would receive a two-year work permit, but the same number of illegal immigrants would be deported. In order to reach the legal quota, the immigrant must have a financial supporter in the United States, submit an application from his home country and arrive in the United States by air. The conditions exclude a large number of people for financial reasons.

Republicans have repeatedly asked Biden to visit the southern border, but now many say that a trip alone is no longer enough.

The border visit precedes Biden and the Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador a meeting in Mexico on Monday and a so-called meeting of three friends on Tuesday. The “Three Amigos” meeting will be attended by North American leaders, i.e. Biden and López Obrador will be joined by the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau.

With the president of Mexico, Biden is believed to discuss, in addition to the migration issue, at least the smuggling of opioids. Mexican cartels are central to the production of fentanyl, which has become a major health problem in the United States.

Mexican authorities prepared for Biden’s visit on Thursday by arresting a 32-year-old drug lord Oviedo Guzmán López in Culuacán, Sinaloa. The timing was not a coincidence, but Mexico is believed to be cheating on its negotiating positions.

Guzmán López, wanted by the United States, is one of Mexico’s most prominent drug criminals, a key leader of the Sinaloa cartel and the cartel’s founding member and former leader, Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loeran, Son of “El Chapo Guzmán”.