The US and Mexico agree to more border control to stop the migratory wave

The presidents of the United States and Mexico have agreed that controls need to be increased on their shared border. Joe Biden and Andrés Manuel López Obrador held a telephone call Thursday to address the migration crisis in the region. The Mexican president a few days ago acknowledged an unusual increase in illegal border crossings between November and December, which data from the U.S. Border Patrol (CBP) put at 31%. The issue has become a political hot potato in Washington, which at the end of November opted to close border crossings in the face of the enormous flow of people. The two heads of state have also announced that a U.S. delegation headed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Mexico in the next few days to define new measures to tackle the crisis.

The call between Biden and López Obrador took place at the initiative of the U.S. president, as confirmed by the White House and his Mexican counterpart. The conversation was held in the context of the growing immigration crisis at the border, where up to 10,000 daily interceptions of irregular migrants have been recorded this week.

According to a summary issued by the White House: “The President had a chance this morning to speak by phone with President López Obrador of Mexico. They had a chance to talk about ongoing efforts to manage the unprecedented migratory flows in the Western Hemisphere, building on the Los Angeles Declaration for Migration and Protection that President Biden launched in Los Angeles back in June of 2022. The two leaders agreed that additional enforcement actions are urgently needed so that key ports of entry can be reopened across our shared border.”

Both leaders agreed on the need for greater control along the 1,954-mile border, to which end Washington said that several senior U.S. officials including Blinken, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, and the U.S. Homeland Security Advisor Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall will travel to Mexico to meet with López Obrador. White House national security spokesman John Kirby explained that during Thursday’s high-level conversation, Biden focused on asking for greater effort from Mexico in its assistance in dealing with the crisis.

The last time the two leaders met was in California last month during the APEC Summit. There, they addressed the fentanyl threat and discussed ways to expand security cooperation.

Mexico has a dual migration problem. On the one hand, thousands of migrants pass through country each month seeking to reach the United States. On the other, it is facing a massive outflow of Mexican nationals who have joined the caravans in order to cross illegally to the north. López Obrador’s government estimates that of the 307,000 people expected to be detained at the border by the end of the year, almost 75,000 will be Mexicans.

These unprecedented numbers have led to the closure of border crossings. On 27 November, the U.S. government decided to close the bridge linking Piedras Negras, Coahuila, with Eagle Pass, Texas, to people and vehicles coming from Mexico. The CBP said it made this decision due to the increase in irregular arrivals. For the same reason, on December 4 the crossing from Sonoyta, Sonora, to Lukeville, Arizona, was also closed. And on December 9, the crosswalk from El Chaparral, in Tijuana (Baja California), to San Ysidro (California), one of the busiest borders in the world, was shut down.

Trade relations have been a point of contention between the two countries and the relationship between Biden and López Obrador has been tense at times. Increased migration flows are taking a toll on some sectors of the U.S. economy. Dozens of the country’s agricultural conglomerates on Wednesday called for the reopening of two border rail crossings to restore arteries of commercial communication clogged by the escalation of crossings in recent weeks. The move came in in response to the Mexican immigration agency’s decision to suspend migrant expulsions until the end of the year due to lack of funds.

The immigration issue has been a thorn in Biden’s side during his nearly three years in office with the 2024 presidential campaign on the horizon. He arrived in the White House with the intention of “humanizing” border management, but found himself faced with a crisis aggravated by the effects of the end of the coronavirus pandemic and the lack of stability in some of the migrant-sending countries. His political adversaries have taken him to task on this issue, accusing him of inaction and of maintaining “an open border.”

From Mayorkas to Biden or the Republicans, there is consensus in Washington that the U.S. immigration system is “broken” due to a lack of legislative revision — the last one addressing the border dates to the late 1980s — which is at an impasse amid the political brawl in the U.S. Congress.

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