Mexico’s foreign secretary discusses what her country is doing to ease border crisis

Amna Nawaz:

Now to a view of this crisis from the top levels of the Mexican government.

A short time ago, I spoke with Mexico's secretary of foreign affairs, Alicia Barcena. Just last week, she met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken here in Washington on this complex political, but fundamentally human matter.

Since the holidays, there's been a drop in migrant encounters at the U.S. border, which the Biden administration credits to more aggressive enforcement by Mexico.

I began by asking Secretary Barcena what Mexico has done differently.

Alicia Barcena, Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretary:

In the case of U.S. and Mexico, it's no longer Mexicans going to the U.S. that much.

We are having much more people coming from Guatemala, Venezuela, and we agreed that we were going to, in a certain way, do some repatriation back to the countries of origin. So that's number one measure we have been doing, and that has worked quite well.

Secondly is that we have done much more law enforcement to bring down the pressure in the border in the north, and we are bringing people from the north to the southern part of Mexico. And, from there, we are looking for, in some cases — some people cannot be — some migrants cannot be repatriated, such as the Haitians, for example.

So we help them to find some jobs in our own country. Then the third one is we are focusing on the structural causes of migration, which means that we are going to these countries and we are providing some development packages to the people to — in a certain way, to incentivize them to stay back in their countries of origin.

Amna Nawaz:

As part of your enforcement efforts, I know in the past Mexico has relied heavily on your armed forces and on the National Guard, and there's been some studies that have shown that that reliance has led to a number of abuses, sexual abuse and extortion along the way, particularly for women and migrants of African descent.

I have to tell you, from the migrants I have met recently arriving in the U.S., most of them have said the most difficult part of the journey is coming through Mexico, because of that abuse. How is your government planning to stop that?

Alicia Barcena:

You see, the thing is that this is something that we are very worried about, because, precisely, we are trying to seek the possibility of people staying in the southern part of Mexico, because the travel is dangerous.

I think the smugglers is a big problem, a big issue, not only from Mexico. This starts from the Darien in Panama. So, one of the things we are aiming at is to go together to the Darien, together with the U.S., Colombia, Panama and other countries, to see if we can stop the human trafficking, because this is a real serious problem.

Amna Nawaz:

Madam Secretary, if I may, what I have heard from these migrants, though, is not that the Darien Gap was difficult. It is that Mexican officials, Mexican authorities are the ones abusing and extorting them.

Alicia Barcena:

Well, sometimes, we have to stop them from getting to the border. That is true.

And so they want — one of the things we have to realize is, these people are looking to go to the U.S. That's what they want. And if we are going to try — and these people are basically illegal immigrants. So we are trying to — we are — in a certain way, we are doing a lot of efforts to accompany the guards, the military and the — as you say, the law enforcement officials, to be accompanied by human rights officials.

We are working on that, and also to provide them with social services on their way and humanitarian. We have 52 shelters, and we have 100 shelters for children and — that are unaccompanied or children on their own. So what we are working on is, whenever a migrant comes in and transits in our country, if they are children, and unaccompanied children, we send them to these shelters immediately, to the shelters for children and mothers, for example, or families.

And then, of course, yes, many of them get very aggressive, because we want them to go back. Of course, that becomes a problem. Or when we want to repatriate them, that's another issue as well.

Amna Nawaz:

Secretary Barcena, let me ask you how you're viewing the current immigration debate in the U.S., because, right now, the man who could become the nominee for the Republican Party, former President Donald Trump, has talked about cracking down on immigration and on deporting more people.

And the conversation right now is around tightening access and asylum restrictions. How do you view that conversation? How do Mexicans view that conversation?

Alicia Barcena:

Well, I have to tell you that I think we have to change the narrative, because, at the end of the day, Mexico and the U.S. are neighbors.

We are — our proximity is there. We have — we are the first trading partner of the U.S. today, $163 billion a year, which is $2 million per minute. This is the trading between U.S. and Mexico. The major part of these exports to the U.S. are also U.S. components, by the way. We're talking about 40 percent of the exports of Mexico are U.S. components that come in and out.

So,if the borders are closed, as it happened in December, the damage is not only for Mexico. It's going to be also for the U.S. So this is why we believe that we have to partner, U.S. and Mexico, agree on how do we want to deal with migration, which is not coming from Mexico that much. It's coming from the region, from the southern part of Mexico.

So, of course, I understand the narrative that is — I mean, it's a narrative that is very negative, because also it's like the Mexicans are the bad guys that are bringing and contaminating the blood of the America. Come on, give me a break.

The Mexican migrants in the U.S. are contributing to the economy big time. They are providing $9 billion a year of taxes. And the salaries, only 20 percent of the salaries of the Mexicans in the U.S. are coming to our country. We're talking about $65 billion. That's 20 percent of the salaries.

So that means that 80 percent is staying in the economy of the U.S. So, and also…

Amna Nawaz:

Madam Secretary, if I may, let me ask you about the other aspects of this relationship, though, because a senior official I spoke with today stressed exactly that, that it is a multifaceted partnership between U.S. and Mexico.

He said, in part, that it's based on security and the economic and migration cooperation, also to combat trafficking and organized crime, and also what he called the scourge of fentanyl.

And, on that point, I need to ask you, because we know most of the precursors in fentanyl are produced in China, but Mexico has become a major transit and production hub, and that is fueling the opioid crisis here in the United States, where tens of thousands of people have died in the last year.

What more can your government do to address that?

Alicia Barcena:

What we're doing is, we are controlling the coming in of the precursors of fentanyl from China. And we have a system that we are controlling the entrance of these precursors, because many of these precursors of fentanyl are legal, by the way, because they are used for anesthetics.

And the other thing is, we have to work on the addiction. We don't have that much consumption of fentanyl in Mexico. The fentanyl that goes into the U.S. is basically brought in by the Americans, in themselves. We have closed down laboratories. We're doing a lot of work in enforcing the — and supervision of the borders.

Amna Nawaz:

That is the Mexican secretary of foreign affairs, Alicia Barcena, joining us tonight.

Madam Secretary, thank you for your time. Really appreciate it.

Alicia Barcena:

Thank you so much for the opportunity. Great pleasure.