Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) met with Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday. On Monday, I wrote about the strained relationship between the two men. AMLO didn’t even bother to show up for the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles last month.
AMLO met first with Kamala. She hosted him for breakfast at the vice-president’s residence. I assume she did not serve breakfast tacos, given Jill’s embarrassing and insulting speech in San Antonio on Monday to a Hispanic audience. It turns out she is as racist and out of touch as her husband.
Kamala was scheduled to talk to AMLO about migration and root causes. She’s leaned into the root causes line of discussion instead of sealing up the southern border and making agreements with Mexican officials to help handle illegal migration on the border like Trump did so successfully. Kamala’s time as border czar has been an abysmal failure. I wonder how many times she nervously cackled during their meeting.
The good news is that AMLO met with Biden and agreed to invest $1.5 billion in technology at the U.S.-Mexican border. As I’ve often noted, Biden shows no sense of urgency on much of anything, even the Biden border crisis. He should have been developing a working relationship with AMLO upon being sworn into office. Instead, Biden signed executive orders that did away with Trump’s border agreements and policies on his very first day in the Oval Office. When Team Biden meets with Mexican officials they focus on issues like climate change and ending fossil fuel production, something that Mexico is not interested in discussing.
In a joint statement released by the White House, the two leaders said they would fund a joint infrastructure effort to improve security and efficiency at the southern border.
The statement said that the bipartisan infrastructure law Biden signed into law last fall would contribute $3.4 billion to 26 modernization projects at land ports of entry, and that Mexico agreed to invest $1.5 billion in “border infrastructure” over the next two years.
“Borders that are more resilient, more efficient, and safer, will enhance our shared commerce,” the joint statement read. “We are committed like never before to completing a multi-year joint U.S.-Mexico border infrastructure modernization effort for projects along the 2,000-mile border.”
“The joint effort seeks to align priorities, unite border communities, and make the flow of commerce and people more secure and efficient,” the statement continued.
During their meeting in the Oval Office, Biden pretended to have some interest in the humanitarian crisis on the southern border. Cartels are in control of the border, thanks to Biden’s neglect and disinterest in securing the border. “We’ve had a major anti-smuggling operation underway since April, targeting human smugglers who traffic in people, drugs, and weapons,” Biden said. “Towards this effort, we’ve deployed 1,300 additional personnel, conducted 20,000 disruption operations, and we’ve made over 3,000 arrests, all since April.” Sure, Joe.
Addressing root causes in Central America and Mexico in order to stop mass illegal migration is code for throwing millions of dollars to corrupt leaders. The people who need the money and assistance rarely see any of it. During the Summit of the Americas, Biden and Kamala announced a commitment to non-agricultural visas, resettling refugees, and millions of dollars in humanitarian aid.
There, the White House announced that the U.S. was committing to offering 22,500 H-2B non-agricultural visas to Central America and Haiti, and to resettle 20,000 refugees from the Americas in FY 2023 and 2024 (a three-fold increase from this year), increase reunification programs for Cubans and Haitians, provide an additional $25 million for a crisis response program on migration and commit to a $314 million in funding via the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for humanitarian and development assistance for refugees and vulnerable migrants across the hemisphere.
The U.S. also promised to increase the resettlement of Haitian migrants, and roll out a new “Fair Recruitment Practices Guidance” for temporary migrant workers, which will be done in cooperation with major corporations like Walmart.
“This is just a start,” Biden said. There’s much more work remains to state the obvious. Every country needs to work together to maintain a humane, orderly immigration process; to invest in securing the borders, screening and registering migrants who enter their countries and repatriating those who do not qualify to remain.”
Previous presidents have tried to treat illegal migration at the southern border as a regional issue instead of a U.S. issue. It doesn’t work. Trump found a way to work with Mexico and Northern Triangle countries but he’s the exception. Other American presidents just throw money at the problem and then wonder why nothing changes. Why would it? Corrupt leaders in poor Central American countries don’t care if their citizens leave for greener pastures. That’s just fewer people for them to worry about.
We’ll see if AMLO makes good on his financial pledge. Technology is good but boots on the ground are also needed. Let’s hope he will provide additional manpower along the border, too.
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