AMLO asks for visas and Biden for patience

THE TWO PRESIDENTS RECONCILE

Eduardo Ribas / EFE

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President Joe Biden asked for “patience” before the demand of his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, for more work visas for Mexicans and Central Americans. López Obrador also asks to regularize millions of undocumented immigrants in the country. “I’m not suggesting that we don’t have problems, because we do have them. What you have to have is patience,” said the Democratic leader in his second meeting with the Mexican in the White House.

The migratory issue was central for the moment, specially with the record of arrivals of undocumented immigrants who live on the border. This was seen with the discovery in San Antonio, Texas, of 53 migrants killed by overcrowding in a storage container, 26 of them being from Mexico. López Obrador asked Biden to emulate the program of former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945) for which thousands of Mexican farmers were hired in the US at that time.

Push for immigration reform

López Obrador thought that the US is again short of labor, which is why he suspects Biden of “allowing the arrival of workers, technicians and professionals from different disciplines, Mexicans and Central Americans, with temporary work visas.” In addition, he urged Biden to fulfill his promise to promote an immigration reform that regularizes the nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country, and which is stalled in Congress.

“It is essential for us to regularize and give certainty to migrants who for years have lived and worked in a very honest way and are also contributing to the development of this great nation,” he said. For his part, Biden claimed that he “is leading the way to create opportunities for legal pathways” for migrants and recalled that in 2021 he issued the “record” figure of 300,000 visas for Mexican workers in non-agricultural jobs.

Duplicate temporary visas

Biden promised to “double” temporary visas for Central Americans in the next fiscal year. He explained that these types of measures help the economy and curb irregular migration. He also emphasized the need to strengthen the border and combat the human trafficking networks behind tragedies like the one in San Antonio. He recalled that his administration has allocated 3.4 billion dollars.

This money has been used to improve the infrastructure of border crossings such as San Ysidro. While López Obrador suggested that he solve the problems through “transformation” and not “conservatism”, Biden threw the ball in the Republicans’ court, whom he accused of being in “extremist” positions. Biden made reference to the fact that Mexico suffers an inflation of 7.99 percent in June and the US with 8.6 percent in May.

Given this, López Obrador will have a plan to expand the supply of gasoline in the United States and make 1,000 kilometers of Mexican gas pipelines available to that country. He also requested to suspend some tariffs that are still in force despite the new free trade agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC), and to carry out a joint public and private investment plan that avoids importing products from other countries.

Overcoming their differences

It was the first time that both leaders saw each other after López Obrador’s rudeness at the Summit of the Americas held in June in Los Angeles, which he did not attend in protest at the decision of the United States to eliminate Cuba from the event, Venezuela and Nicaragua. López Obrador expresses his criticism of the United States more openly than when Donald Trump (2017-2021) was in power.

He recently called for “dismantling the Statue of Liberty” if Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is extradited and convicted in the United States. However, both leaders made an effort to show harmony and even Biden said that “despite the exaggerated headlines” in the press, their relationship is “strong and productive.”