MEXICO CITY — The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, criticized this Thursday a United States bill that would authorize his counterpart, Joe Bidento close the binational border if the immigration situation overflows.
“It’s more of the same, they don’t want to go to the bottom of it,” said López Obrador in his usual press conference, underlining that “manipulation” around immigration and drug trafficking issues is a constant in the United States during electoral times.
And the leftist president wants the US to allocate $20 billion to the countries that cause the most migration, one of them being Mexico and the authoritarian regimes of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
In the month of December, the Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP) registered 371,036 migrant encounters, which means a daily entry of more than 12,000 undocumented immigrants, an unprecedented number.
In the first three months of the 2024 fiscal period, which began on October 1, the Border Patrol records almost a million revenues.
Biden forced by elections and aid to Ukraine
The bill is being negotiated between a group of Republican congressmen and government officials, at a time when the immigration crisis is at the center of the electoral agenda and when a confrontation for the White House between Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, is looming. next November.
The partisan discussions seek to save an aid package for Ukraine requested by Biden from Congress, but conditioned by conservatives on a tightening of the policy in the face of the record numbers of migrants and asylum seekers intercepted at the 3,200 km border. Republicans demand the protection of the border due to the threat it represents to national security.
“Why do they help with war spending, billions of dollars in wars, and they can’t allocate resources for progress, for the well-being of poor people?” questioned the Mexican president, reiterating that illegal migration only It can be contained if its causes are resolved.
“Imagine what it is like to close the border! How long can it remain closed? It harms both countries. But it is not an option, an alternative,” said the leftist ruler, who has maintained good relations with Biden and Trump, to who he calls “friends.”
Support agreement
Biden supports the partisan agreement, pointing out that it is the “toughest and fairest set of reforms to guarantee the security” of the bordering territory that the United States has “ever” had. His decision occurs three years after his arrival at the White House and when the Border Patrol has recorded more than 8,000,000 encounters of undocumented immigrants since January 2021.
For his part, Trump opposes the plan, claiming that he will not support anything that benefits the “betrayal of open borders” that he blames on Biden.
Source: With information from AFP
