Negotiation between López Obrador and Biden

On the morning of Oct. 20, The Washington Post gave an exclusive preview of the numbers the U.S. government will soon release showing how many migrants were detained at the U.S.-Mexico border in the last U.S. fiscal year, from October 2020 to September 2021.

More than 1.7 million “encounters,” as the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency calls them; he highest 12-month figure since 1986. Perhaps the figure that should most concern us and both governments is the number of Mexicans who tried to cross the border: 608,000, another figure actively on the rise compared to previous years.

These figures clearly indicate that the concentration of effort at Mexico’s southern border is ultimately a pretense intended to look good to everyone, but these efforts have not stopped those who want to reach the U.S.

The number is a bad sign for Joe Biden’s administration at a time when his approval rating remains low and Trumpism is still alive in several states. Immigration and his famous wall were the issues that in many ways formed the basis of Donald Trump’s candidacy during his first presidential campaign, and today it’s an issue that candidates whom Trump supports continue to exploit.

It’s also bad news for Mexico because, thanks to a judicial decision, the Biden administration must reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” program, created by Trump and accepted — as the result of economic blackmail — by this government, which has located thousands of asylum seekers in our country to wait for hearings that slowly occurred.

The U.S. warned the court that resuming the “Remain in Mexico” program would require cooperation from the Mexican government, and representatives from the two countries have been in discussions over the matter for the last few weeks.

But politics is politics. Biden’s challenges in getting his economic recovery program through Congress and the fact that the immigration crisis — because the numbers indicate it is a crisis — will be used by Republicans in next year’s elections, could force Biden’s hand and his plans, and pressure the Mexican government to accept things like “Remain in Mexico” 2.0.

We will soon see how this negotiation ends.