Mexico leader urges US to invest in people, not walls

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (third from left) attends a meeting with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas to discuss migration, in Mexico City on Wednesday. (Reuters)

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday the US Congress should focus on investing in people instead of building walls, hours before he was set to meet Secretary of State Antony Blinken to discuss migration to the United States.
President Joe Biden’s administration is seeking help from Lopez Obrador’s government to stem migration flows and cope with record numbers of people trying to reach the US border, a key issue ahead of the US presidential election in November.
The meetings come after more than half a million migrants this year crossed the dangerous Darien Gap jungle into Central America — double last year’s record — many fleeing crime, poverty and conflict to seek entry into the United States. Lopez Obrador, who last week assured the United States that Mexico would help ease migratory pressures, said the US Congress should be investing in poor people in Latin America and the Caribbean “instead of putting up barriers, barbed wire fences in the river, or thinking about building walls”.
“It is more efficient and more humane to invest in the development of the people and that is what we have always proposed, Lopez Obrador told a press conference.
Lopez Obrador added that he expects next year’s US election will bring the issue of migration to the forefront. “We have to take care because campaigners use this issue as a rallying cry,” Lopez Obrador said.
Former US president Donald Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, has promised to crack down on illegal immigration and restrict legal immigration if elected to a second four-year term in office. Trump focused on building a wall on the Mexico border during his first term and has pledged to close gaps in the border wall if re-elected. His administration built 450 miles of barriers across the 1,954-mile border, but much of that replaced existing structures.
Lopez Obrador planned to meet midday in Mexico City with Blinken, who will also speak with Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena. The US delegation includes Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
A State Department spokesman said they will discuss “unprecedented irregular migration in the Western Hemisphere and identify ways Mexico and the United States will address border security challenges.”
On Wednesday, thousands of migrants and asylum seekers marched slowly north from southern Mexico in a caravan hoping to reach the US border, many carrying small children.
“We don’t need to go back to our country if we don’t have anything there,” said Nohemia Zendejas, a mother on the road with four children in tow. “I come from Venezuela and Venezuela is broken”.
The unusual Christmas week trip by the top American diplomat was abruptly scheduled as the rival Republican Party presses Biden to crack down on migration as a condition for providing the votes in Congress for one of his key priorities — support for Ukraine.
Around 10,000 people without authorisation are trying to cross the southern US border each day, nearly double the number before the pandemic, with a new caravan of hundreds if not thousands of people leaving by foot from southern Mexico on Sunday. US border authorities have been so overwhelmed that they have suspended several legal crossings to focus on processing migrants.
Mexican President Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday that Mexico was “helping a lot” on tackling migration.
“We’re going to keep doing it and we want to reach an agreement,” he said at his morning news conference, adding that next year’s US elections were giving fresh impetus to the issue.
“People leave their towns out of necessity and there’s a lot of economic and social crisis in the world. It’s necessary to further promote productive activities and job creation,” Lopez Obrador said. The package proposed by Biden to Congress would also fund 1,300 additional Border Patrol agents to help address migration.
The Biden administration has warned that without a deal, Ukraine will soon run out of weapons needed to repel the nearly two-year-old Russian invasion.
Andrew Rudman, director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, expected Blinken to seek additional support from Mexico to keep migrants within its borders, such as temporary work permits.