White House wants Mexico to make it harder for migrants to reach U.S. border

Amna Nawaz:

The Biden administration is closing out 2023 in much the same way it began with headlines about a migrant crisis on the U.S. Southern border, Border Patrol agents encountering a record number of people entering the country, a caravan heading toward the border, and American cities struggling to keep up with asylum seekers.

As Stephanie Sy reports, it's with that backdrop that President Biden dispatched three top advisers to Mexico in search of solutions.

Stephanie Sy:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Mexico City today, greeted by U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar. Blinken, along with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and other top U.S. officials, met with Mexico's president on their second visit since October to address the migrant crisis.

The U.S. is asking Lopez Obrador to make it harder for migrants to move through Mexico and to do more to stop migrants when they try to enter Mexico from Guatemala. In exchange, Mexico wants the U.S. to commit more aid to the migrants' countries of origin and ease sanctions on Venezuela and Cuba.

The talks come as record numbers of people try to enter the U.S. from the Southern border. At times last week, Customs and Border Protection stopped more than 10,000 people a day, adding to the more than 240,000 migrants that officials encountered in November.

The numbers have stretched Border Patrol to its limits, with agents struggling to process the influx, as thousands gathered in Eagle Pass, Texas, in recent weeks. U.S. Customs and Border Protection closed other ports of entry in Arizona and California in the last month in order to redeploy officers to help with migrant processing.

Underlining the pressure on U.S. officials, a caravan of migrants is steadily making its way to the border. An estimated 6,000 people from Central America, Venezuela, Cuba, and elsewhere have been waiting for months in Southern Mexico. On Christmas Eve, they began their march northwards under the beating sun.

They make up the largest caravan in more than a year. Many young and exhausted families are among the masses, including Jose's.

Jose, Migrant From Honduras (through interpreter):

My daughter can't walk anymore. I carry her in my arms because she needs to rest. She's only 3 years old. And she's not healthy. She's ill.

Stephanie Sy:

Rosa journeyed from El Salvador.

Rosa, Migrant From El Salvador (through interpreter):

I demand politicians to touch their hearts, because many of us are tired, without eating, and with blisters on our feet.

Stephanie Sy:

While U.S. leaders seek solutions that would control those coming into the U.S., the migrants seek rest and compassion.

For a closer look at the situation the Southern border, I'm joined by Elliot Spagat, immigration reporter with the Associated Press.

Elliot, thanks so much for joining the "NewsHour."

What is the goal of the meeting between top Biden administration officials today and the Mexican president?

Elliot Spagat, San Diego Correspondent, Associated Press:

Well, the U.S. officials haven't made any public asks, but we can infer from what's been happening over the last few weeks.

The numbers are astronomical. They're unprecedented, to use the word of the CBP acting Commissioner Troy Miller, above 10,000 arrests for illegal crossings on many days in December. So they want to get a handle on the numbers. And, of course, this is not happening in a political vacuum. There's negotiations in Congress, with aid to Ukraine hanging in the balance.

So I think the U.S. officials want to get a little better handle on the numbers. And to give one specific example, the rail crossings in Eagle Pass, Texas, and in Eagle — El Paso were closed for five days this month and caused a lot of economic losses. They're reopened. But what was happening there was, people were coming up on the trains through Mexico.

And the U.S. wants Mexico to do more to stop that. So, more enforcement is what I think the U.S. is looking for.

Stephanie Sy:

You visited the Arizona side of the border with Mexico recently. What did you see for yourself about the situation and specifically about the efficacy of the border wall?

Elliot Spagat:

Yes, I was in Lukeville, Arizona, which is one of the hot spots right now. About 3,000 people are crossing a day in that general area, much of it through Lukeville, which is a border crossing that is closed right now because of all the need to focus resources on processing migrants.

It's the border crossing, a duty-free shop, and a restaurant. And there's really very few agents around, but lots of people. I saw lots, probably more from Senegal than any other country, lots from Ghana — Guinea — I'm sorry — Mexico, of course, Guatemala.

And they're sawing through the walls, the smugglers are, on the Mexican side. They're using construction-grade tools. These are columns that were built during the final days of the Trump administration. They cut through and swing the columns back and forth. So people can just walk through, young people, toddlers, older people.

It's very easy to get through. And they walk for hours looking for Border Patrol agents who are nowhere to be found. This could probably be stopped by Border Patrol agents, but they just don't have enough there. They're busy processing.

I did — again, Commissioner Miller said he wants Mexico to step more. These are — step up more. There are these breaches, and there were hundreds of them, that they had been welded shut, but the dates were marked on when they had been fixed, and hundreds of them over a 30-mile stretch.

And Commissioner Miller said, we need Mexico to step up to do more, to stop people from breaching these wall — the wall on the Mexican side.

Stephanie Sy:

You have been reporting on the underlying causes of increased migration, from climate change to poverty. But you have also emphasized in your recent reporting the role of technology in smuggling operations.

I wonder if you would talk a little bit more about what you found out about how that contributes to the increasing flow of migrants.

Elliot Spagat:

Yes.

Well, it vastly increases global mobility. So we did a story on Mauretanians, who are very — very few were crossing. And then around February, March of this year, they were crossing, like, several thousand a month, most of them going to Cincinnati or New York.

They fly — about 4,000 Chinese are crossing a month through San — mostly through San Diego. And I mentioned the Senegalese, people from Uzbekistan, Turkey, India, thousands from these countries every month. And the — there needs to be a lot more reporting, I think, on this.

But there are travel agencies that — many of them really are travel agencies. And they help — they arrange flights and communicate virtually over social media. Every migrant has a smartphone. And so they use TikTok and Facebook and YouTube and other apps to get instructions.

And so the smugglers are oftentimes not even with them physically. They aren't when they cross the U.S. border. They're just given instructions, cross here, walking until you see a Border Patrol agent. So that is a — and that is a sea change from just a few years ago.

Stephanie Sy:

How would you describe how immigration politics have shifted in the last year?

Elliot Spagat:

To the right, for sure.

One big development, of course, has been the large influx of migrants from Venezuela and other countries to New York, Chicago, Denver, other Democrat-run cities. And so we're seeing now, with the negotiations and Congress over this — it includes aid to Israel and Ukraine, as well as border security measures, it is a lot of Democrats saying, like John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, even Dick Durbin, who was the original champion of the dreamer legislation, saying, Chuck Schumer, we need to do something.

Of course, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is very much opposed to those changes. They want to keep the asylum system going. And other Republicans are split too. So, we will see.

But I think, overall, there seems to be a growing consensus that something needs to be done and more on the enforcement side.

Stephanie Sy:

Elliot Spagat with the Associated Press, thanks so much for joining us with your insights.

Elliot Spagat:

Thank you.