The White House has secretly been urging Mexico to take in more illegal immigrants expelled from the US under the Title 42 health policy — despite the administration publicly claiming it wants to scrap it, according to a new report.
Mexico already accepts migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador that have been turned away by the US.
But Reuters reports Biden administration officials are now pressuring Mexico City to resettle migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela as the border crisis escalates and crossings soar to record highs.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised concerns about the surge of migrants from those three countries during an official visit on Monday, two US and two Mexican officials told the wire service.
Mexico did not promise any specific actions and trying to convince them was “an uphill battle,” officials said.
The White House has repeatedly tried to lift Title 42 — the COVID health order that was put in place in early 2020 by former President Donald Trump as a way to quickly send migrants back across the border without hearing their asylum claims amid the ongoing pandemic. --->READ MORE HERE
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| REUTERS/Paul Ratje/File Photo |
As border crossings have soared to record highs, U.S. President Joe Biden's administration is quietly pressing Mexico to accept more migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela under a COVID-19 expulsion order that the White House has publicly sought to end, seven U.S. and three Mexican officials said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised concerns about an escalating number of crossings by migrants from the three countries during a visit on Monday to Mexico City, two U.S. and two Mexican officials told Reuters, but Mexico did not promise any specific actions
One U.S. official said trying to convince Mexico to agree is "an uphill battle."
All sources requested anonymity to discuss internal government matters.
Mexico already accepts U.S. returns of migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. So far, this fiscal year about 299,000 people from those nations have been expelled at the border, compared to about 9,000 returns from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
The U.S. effort to pressure Mexico on these three particular nationalities illustrates the depth of concern within the Biden's Democratic administration about their border crossings. Most migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela who cross into the United States are allowed to stay to pursue asylum claims, since they are difficult to deport due to frosty diplomatic relations with their governments.
Mexico's foreign ministry declined to comment. A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council declined to discuss "diplomatic conversations" but said that nations in the region "have already begun to take collective responsibility to manage migration flows, including through repatriations."
U.S. border agents have made a record 1.8 million migrant arrests so far in fiscal year 2022, with many attempting to cross multiple times, creating humanitarian challenges and political liabilities for Biden ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm election.
Of those arrests at the southwest border, nearly a quarter of the migrants were from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, up from 8% in 2021 and 3% in 2020. Most were let into the United States to pursue immigration cases. --->READ MORE HERE
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