The US announces that it is in talks with other governments to repatriate migrants

The United States said Wednesday that it is in talks with other governments to reach agreements to repatriate irregular migrants, after the restrictions that that country imposed for asylum applications.

The announcement came hours after President Andrés Manuel López declared that his government is seeking Washington to reach agreements “so that if they make a decision to deport they do so directly” to the countries of origin and do not return the migrants to Mexico. .

The US Undersecretary of Homeland Security, Blas Nuñez-Neto, said at a press conference on Wednesday that Washington is in “constant discussions with governments throughout the Eastern and Western Hemisphere to reach repatriation agreements that allow us to return people who are not “They have a legal basis to stay in the United States in the most expedited manner possible.”

Nuñez-Neto assured that the measures will allow the repatriation “in a very accelerated manner of a much larger proportion of the people we are encountering at the border, either to their countries or to Mexico.”

In an attempt to allay concerns that arose following President Joe Biden’s announcements on Tuesday about restrictions on migrants seeking asylum at the southern border of the United States, the undersecretary stated that it is “too early to indicate what is going”.

“I can tell you that we are not seeing any high flows at the border. So it seems to us that things are operating quite well,” he added.

“Why triangulate? Why not a direct agreement?” López Obrador asked in his press conference when he was in favor of the United States carrying out direct deportations of migrants to their countries of origin.

The president ruled out that the new asylum limitations could trigger a saturation on Mexico’s northern border and expressed his willingness to maintain support for the United States. “In any case, we cooperate and help President Biden,” he added.

Biden announced the day before immediate restrictions for migrants seeking asylum at the border between the United States and Mexico.

The measure will go into effect when the number of border encounters between ports of entry reaches 2,500 a day, US authorities reported. That means the order should take effect immediately, because daily averages are higher.

Mexico currently accepts Mexicans who have been deported and up to about 30,000 repatriated Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans per month, a commitment it made in 2023 when the Biden government put into force other regulations that also tightened the requirements to obtain asylum.

Since the beginning of the year, Mexico has tightened controls on the passage of migrants to prevent them from reaching the United States following agreements reached by the authorities of both countries between December and January to confront the migratory wave.

The director for Mexico of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Rafael Velásquez, explained that Mexico’s role is key to the implementation of US immigration policies.

“Definitely, over the last three months, we have already seen an acceleration and intensification of measures to contain and detain, and prevent people from reaching the border,” Velásquez said.

Although Mexican authorities prevent the progress of migrants, relatively few are deported, causing many to stay in Mexican cities far from the US border.

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