Mexico, US to strengthen joint plan to tackle migration

MEXICO CITY

Mexico and the US announced a series of additional measures Tuesday to address the humanitarian situation caused by unparalleled migration flows at their shared border days before the COVID-19 health policy known as Title 42 is set to end.

The statement came after Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador met with White House Homeland Security Advisor Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall in Mexico City to discuss border security and migration in the region.

US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar, Mexico's Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and Interior Minister Adan Augusto Lopez were in attendance.

Sherwood-Randall’s second visit to Mexico following a meeting in the Mexican capital in late March happened days before the expiration of Title 42, a policy established by then US President Donald Trump which allows the US to rapidly expel migrants illegally entering the country back to Mexico, with the stated intent of preventing the coronavirus from spreading in the US.

Lopez Obrador said during one of his morning press conferences on May 1 that with the end of Title 42, migrants should refrain from crossing illegally or relying on migrant smugglers.

Following his meeting with Sherwood-Randall, the Mexican government agreed to step up actions with the US to combat human traffickers and smugglers. According to Mexico, the agreement follows a trilateral effort between the US, Panamanian and Colombian governments to hamper migrant smugglers in Panama’s Darien province, a transit zone for migrants from Latin America and also for those from African and Asian countries trying to reach the US, while creating legal pathways for migration.

In addition, both countries agreed to continue to enhance their efforts in Central America to address the root causes of migration. In particular, Mexico and the US pledged to revamp their development programs such as Mexico's agrarian initiative Sowing Life, which employs more than 400,000 farmers in the region.

The US also restated its commitment to receiving more than 100,000 people from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador under a family reunification permit program that US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced last week and promised to continue accepting people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Mexico will continue to accept migrants returned by the US amid recent controversies such as a fire at a migration detention facility where 40 migrants died.

Title 42 will end on May 11. In preparation, the Department of Homeland Security announced the deployment of 1,500 military troops to the southern border in support of US immigration authorities.