President Biden dispatched top officials to Mexico City this week for a meeting with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that the White House described as “productive.” It came as migrants are crossing the U.S. border in record numbers and Congress has been unable to reach a consensus on funding border security.
The White House National Security Council said in a statement Thursday that “López Obrador has taken significant new enforcement actions yet we have a lot more work to do together,” and that top White House officials will meet again with Mexican leaders in Washington in January.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Mr. Biden’s homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall traveled to Mexico on Wednesday to meet with López Obrador.
Senior Biden administration officials said late Wednesday that the meeting lasted over two hours. One senior administration official said that Mexico “came prepared to share a plan with us on how they were taking the work that they are already doing” to help stem the flow of migrants into the border.
“We have seen in recent days a pretty significant reduction in in border crossings,” one of the officiasl said. “So again, this is not something that the U.S. and Mexico will be able to address on or off on their own. So I would say the majority of our conversation actually focused on work that we’re doing together in the region.”
