President Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will hold a bilateral meeting Tuesday as both administrations face a surge in migration. They are expected to announce multiyear, joint projects to modernize border infrastructure, senior administration officials said. They will also direct their teams to create a task force to combat criminal organizations and curb the flow of fentanyl, the U.S. officials said, as well as a working group focused on labor, migration pathways and worker protections.
How about this to fight inflation: Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will use his White House visit this week to urge President Biden to allow more legal immigration, which he says would help curb inflation. Last month, Mexican Interior Minister Adán Augusto López, said that 300,000 new temporary work visas would be announced at today’s summit, although the U.S. side has made no mention of it. Meanwhile, arrests at the U.S./Mexico border are continuing to increase and reached record highs in May when the U.S. Border Patrol reported 220,000 apprehensions. That figure included 77,000 Mexicans and was driven upward by a high number of repeat attempts (nearly 25% of the total) making it the highest monthly total since March 2000. Also, 26 of the 53 migrants who recently died after being abandoned by smugglers in a semitrailer in Texas were Mexican.
U.S. officials want López Obrador to retreat on his reliance on fossil fuels and his campaign to favor Mexico’s state-owned electricity utility at the expense of foreign-built plants powered by gas and renewable energy. Washington has filed several complaints under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) free trade agreement pushing Mexico to enforce environmental laws and rules guaranteeing trade union rights.
López Obrador said he planned to speak to Biden about controlling inflation, immigration and security. He said a group of business leaders, including Carlos Slim, Mexico’s wealthiest citizen, would accompany him.
