Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has requested a bilateral meeting with his US counterpart to discuss the migration crisis that has “overwhelmed” his country, his foreign minister said Friday.
The meeting would occur in Washington when Lopez Obrador attends a summit of Latin American leaders, to be convened by US President Joe Biden on November 3.
Lopez Obrador wants to discuss “legal paths” to address the humanitarian situation facing hundreds of thousands of people who have recently attempted to make their way to the United States and to study the ways in which they can request asylum, as well as work visas for the agricultural sector.
Mexico is being “overwhelmed” by the arrival of migrants to its territory, Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena said at a press conference during the UN General Assembly in New York.
Around 9,000 arrive at the country’s southern border every day, around 3,000 of whom have traversed the Darien Gap, a dense jungle on the border between Colombia and Panama.
Another 8,000 arrive at the northern border with the United States every day.
“Yesterday 11,000 arrived,” Barcena said. “This exceeds any capacity, no matter how much Mexico wants to do a good job.”
This year Mexico expects to process 140,000 asylum applications.
“It’s overwhelming,” Barcena stated, pointing to the money she said Mexico spends to support these migrants while they apply for documents to enter the United States, find employment, or return to their countries of origin after rejection by the United States.
“We need help,” she said, urging Washington to lift sanctions on Venezuela to help curb the exodus of migrants.
She also called for action in the Darien Gap, because “it is where the largest flow of migrants” from Venezuela comes through, pushing for coordination with Panama and Colombia.
The Mexican president wants to focus above all on “the structural causes of migration” and articulate a policy with regional states, said Barcena, who will represent Lopez Obrador at the UN General Assembly on Saturday.
Most migrants come from Ecuador, Colombia, Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, Guatemala and Honduras.
Fentanyl and its cross-border transportation will also be on the agenda for talks with Biden, with the powerful opioid having caused the deaths of more than 110,000 Americans.
