Biden, Mexico’s president to talk about immigration in virtual talks
WASHINGTON: United States President Joe Biden and Mexico’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will discuss the increasingly contentious issue of migration across their common border this week, the White House stated Tuesday.
The virtual meeting on Friday will cover the next-door neighbors’ economy, security and energy issues, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.
They will likewise go over the June local Top of the Americas “and how North America can lead on priority initiatives for the area.”
Nevertheless, the most carefully enjoyed topic is most likely to be what Psaki called “cooperation on migration.”
The issue of heavy circulations of would-be migrants and asylum candidates through Mexico and into the southern United States is a political hot potato for Biden ahead of November midterm legislative elections.
Biden’s Democratic Party is on the defensive against Republican attacks that the scenario on the US-Mexico border is out of control, while the White House states it depends on Congress to enact laws fixing what Psaki calls a “damaged immigration system.”
The issue is bubbling up again with the planned expiration on May 23 of the Title 42 policy, a health regulation that allowed quick expulsion of undocumented migrants due to the coronavirus pandemic.
There are issues that with those constraints raised, the already heavy circulation of migrants will significantly expand.
Nevertheless, following a claim by a group of southern US states, a court on Monday released a short-term remain on the lifting of Title 42.
Another front in the migration battle opened Tuesday in the Supreme Court, which was hearing arguments on Biden’s effort to suspend a policy instituted by his predecessor Donald Trump, requiring asylum applicants to stay in Mexico while their cases are under consideration.
Trump imposed the rule as part of his hardline policies, popular on the far right, while critics called it inhumane, requiring already desperate people into hazardous conditions on the Mexican side of the border.
Published at Tue, 26 Apr 2022 13:45:53 +0000