U.S. President Joe Biden will begin his first visit to Mexico since his arrival at the White House on Sunday, a day earlier than expected, on a trip with immigration as the predominant theme.
Biden will arrive on January 8 in the afternoon at Felipe Angeles International Airport, according to the Mexican Foreign Minister, Marcelo Ebrard, on his Twitter account. «He will be welcome to Mexico,» proclaimed the minister, whose country will host the North American Leaders’ Summit.
Before traveling to Mexico, Biden will visit the US border with this country in the midst of an increase in migrant arrivals: 1.2 million people were expelled in 2022 for entering the United States without proper legal authorization, according to data from the US Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and after the reticence expressed in recent months from the White House about a visit that could be understood as a gesture to appease the conservative critics of the president.
The visit also comes just weeks after the Supreme Court decided to preserve indefinitely the so-called Title 42, a Trump-era directive implemented during the pandemic, which allows migrants seeking asylum at the border to be sent to Mexico.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas acknowledged this past Wednesday that the influx of migrants is «pushing the system to the limit,» as reported by the ‘Washington Post’. «We are operating within a system that is fundamentally broken, I don’t think anyone doubts that. We just can’t seem to agree on the solution and the solution is long, long overdue,» he explained.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
