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Mexico will contribute $1.5 billion to southern border infrastructure to improve processing and security, Fox News Digital has learned, a commitment that comes after Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador visited the White House.
López Obrador is visiting Washington, D.C., where he met with President Biden for a bilateral meeting. A source familiar with the negotiations said $1.5 billion was provided by Mexico.
It comes as part of a bilateral meeting organized after López Obrador skipped the Summit of the Americas in June following a disagreement over which nations were invited.
During that summit, the US announced numerous commitments, including hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to refugee and migrant causes, additional work visas and expanded refugee resettlement.
BIDEN AT MEETING WITH MEXICAN PRESIDENT CALLS FOR AID FROM REGION TO STOP BORDER SMUGGLING
Mexico has made its own commitments — namely to expand its migration programs and launch a new temporary employment program.
President Joe Biden speaks as he meets with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, July 12, 2022. ((AP Photo/Susan Walsh))
On Tuesday, President Biden noted other moves his administration has made to secure the border, which has been hit by a huge number of border crossings — with more than 239,000 encounters in May alone. He highlighted joint efforts with Mexico to stop human traffickers and an operation launched in April to stop traffickers of both migrants and deadly drugs like fetanyl.
“We have there has been a massive anti-smuggling operation underway since April targeting human traffickers who deal in people, drugs and weapons. For the purposes of this effort, we have deployed 1,300 additional officers, conducted 20,000 disruption operations and made over 3,000 arrests, all since April,” he said.
Biden also called for more action from the region.
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“But as you know, Mr. President, we need every country in the region to join us in tracking down this multi-billion dollar smuggling industry that preys on our most vulnerable, including the fifty-three people who died in a tractor trailer in San Antonio last month,” he said.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador listens as he meets with President Joe Biden in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, July 12, 2022. ((AP Photo/Susan Walsh))
It follows the administration’s approach of viewing migration as a regional, not just a US, challenge. This approach was promoted by the Biden administration at the summit in Los Angeles, where Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris emphasized their focus on addressing “root causes” in the region and secured the signatures of multiple countries on a declaration to work together on migration.
There, the White House announced that the US is committed to offering 22,500 H-2B non-agricultural visas to Central America and Haiti and to resettling 20,000 refugees from the Americas in fiscal years 2023 and 2024 (a threefold increase from this year), increasing programs for bringing together Cubans and Haitians, providing an additional $25 million for the Migration Crisis Response Program, and committing $314 million in funding through the Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for humanitarian and development assistance to refugees, and vulnerable migrants across the hemisphere.
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The US also promised to increase the resettlement of Haitian migrants and introduce a new “Fair Employment Practices Guide” for temporary migrant workers, which will be done in cooperation with large corporations such as Walmart.
“This is just the beginning,” Biden said. Much work remains to state the obvious. Every state must work together to maintain a humane, orderly immigration process; to invest in border security, screening and registering migrants entering their countries, and repatriating those who do not qualify to stay.”
Adam Shaw is a political reporter for Fox News Digital, with a focus on immigration. You can find him at adam.shaw2@fox.com or on Twitter: @AdamShawNY
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