Mexican President Lopez Obrador and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris meet to discuss rising migrants and corruption.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador has planted a tree plantation work program in Central America, which said it should lead to work visas in the United States, in talks on immigration Friday with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.
At the start of the call, Harris said the United States and Mexico must fight violence and corruption along with the root causes of migration to Central America.
“Together, we have to fight violence, we have to fight corruption and impunity,” Harris said.
President Joe Biden has entrusted Harris with major efforts to reduce immigration from the “Northern Triangle” countries of Mexico and Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) as the administration faces an increase in people who believe in the United States on the southern border.
Harris addressed the U.S.-Mexico border crisis, which he hoped would alleviate providing relief to the North Triangle.
“[M]people don’t want to leave home and when they do it’s often because they do fleeing from some evil or they are forced to leave because there [is] no opportunity, ”he said.
Lopez Obrador said he had a specific proposal he wanted to discuss with Harris. He gave no details, but told reporters minutes earlier that the proposed tree planting was the most important thing on his mind.
During the call, the Mexican president noted that “we have a common border that exceeds 3000 km [1864 miles] long and we have to understand each other and avoid fighting ”.
López Obrador, who promoted his good relations with both the previous Trump administration and the current Biden administration, told reporters at his regular press conference on Friday morning that he also favors safer migration.
It says AMLO from Mexico @VP “There have been differences between us, but we have a common border … We have to understand each other and avoid fighting”
He will share a “specific proposal” on private migration policy pic.twitter.com/9p9gXOgq52
– Saleha Mohsin (@SalehaMohsin) May 7, 2021
“If there is a regular, normal and orderly migratory flow, we can avoid the risks that migrants who are forced to cross our country take,” he said.
The proposal for visa trees came as a surprise when Lopez Obrador previously raised it at a climate summit in Washington in April.
Before the meeting, López Obrador too announced Mexico that he had sent a diplomatic note in the US asking for an explanation about its funding to a critical anti-corruption group with the government. He did not file the application during the meeting.
Asked what Harris hoped to achieve in the talks and what if any agreement was expected, Ricardo Zuniga, the U.S. special envoy to the North American Central Triangle countries, said Wednesday that talks would deepen immigration but they would also go beyond this issue.
“We are undertaking such commitments taking into account the entirety of our relationship with Mexico,” Zuniga said. “Mexico is our largest trading partner … We are deeply connected to them through the economy and through … our value chain and our production chains.”
Harris has said he will visit Mexico and Guatemala on June 7 and 8. It will be her first trip abroad as vice president.
“No matter how hard we try to curb violence, to provide disaster relief, to combat food insecurity, in any case … we will not make significant progress if corruption persists in the region,” Harris said. last week.
U.S. facilities with minor migrants are used to criticize Biden administrations migration management both by the Republican Party and by some progressives.
Most migrants are unaccompanied minors, some up to 17 years old.
