One of the key reforms changes the appointment of magistrates, judges and ministers to an election based on popular vote. Other reforms include reducing the number of Supreme Court justices from 11 to 9 and introducing new judicial procedural rules.

Another significant reform involves the replacement of the Federal Judicial Council. Established in 1994, the Federal Judicial Council was created to take on disciplinary and administrative tasks, allowing Supreme Court to focus on constitutional issues. Under the new reform, the Federal Judicial Council will be replaced by the Judicial Disciplinary Court and a judicial administration body. These entities take over the council’s duties, with  the former handling disciplinary matters and the latter managing administrative responsibilities.

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www.jurist.org/news/2024/09/mexicos-controversial-judicial-reform-takes-effect-following-government-decree/

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U.S. border officials encountered about 6,400 Russians in the four months between October 2021 and January of this year, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data show. That’s more than the roughly 4,100 apprehended during the entire 2021 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. The jump is similar for Ukrainians, with a little more than 1,000 apprehended since October 2021 through January, compared to about 680 for all of the last fiscal year.

These migrants account for a slim fraction of the 670,000 apprehensions made by U.S. border agents in the first months of the 2022 fiscal year, CBP figures show. The majority of those stopped were from Mexico and Central America and were swiftly removed from the United States.

Yet almost all the Russians and Ukrainians have been allowed to remain while they pursue asylum claims, and their presence has been notable at border-area shelters aimed at helping newcomers.

Since June, Russians have consistently been among the top three nationalities arriving at a San Diego shelter, according to data published by the San Diego Rapid Response Network, a coalition of nonprofits, attorneys and community leaders. Last week, Ukrainians were the third most-common nationality among arrivals.

The CBP figures include only migrants who arrived before Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. But one current and one former border official who spoke with Reuters on condition of anonymity said there could be further increases as the fighting has intensified.

More than 1 million refugees have already fled Ukraine amid an onslaught of Russian tanks, troops and missiles that Russia has dubbed a “special operation.” Most have headed to neighboring European countries. But the sheer speed and size of the exodus will exert tremendous pressure on these hosts and likely push some further afield.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, has cracked down on dissent at home by jailing anti-war protesters and closing independent news outlets. Powerful financial sanctions by Western countries are already hammering Russian citizens, adding to migration pressures there.

Would-be migrants from Ukraine and Russia are swapping tips on social media on how to make the journey to the U.S. southern border via Mexico to claim asylum.

Russian dissident Dmitriy Zubarev made that trek last year. A civil rights lawyer, Zubarev had worked on the presidential campaign of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is currently jailed. Spooked by the growing crackdown on dissent, Zubarev fled after Navalny’s organizations were labeled “extremist” by the Russian government.

Zubarev told Reuters he boarded a plane in June 2021 from Moscow to Cancun, Mexico, then flew to Tijuana at the U.S border where he boarded a minivan with 11 other migrants. As soon as he crossed over, he said he asked for asylum and was released to pursue his case. Zubarev currently resides in Connecticut. He predicted more Russians would follow.

“Repression is intensifying and the people coming out to protest the war are treated very harshly,” Zubarev told Reuters. “There will be more people trying to use refugee routes to escape the bad situation in the country.”

The Russian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Zubarev.

The Russian Embassy in an emailed statement said it was “very concerned” about what it characterized as “detention” of alleged Russian citizens at the U.S.-Mexico border near San Diego, and that it had contacted the U.S. State Department to verify their identities.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

U.S. President Joe Biden and his top officials have said they strongly support Ukrainians as well as Russians who have taken to the streets to protest the invasion.

But his administration so far is playing a secondary role to Europe when it comes to the refugee crisis, and has said it expects most fleeing Ukrainians to head to European nations.

The Biden administration on Thursday said it was granting temporary deportation relief and work permits to tens of thousands of Ukrainians already in the United States as of March 1.

At a congressional hearing on Wednesday, Representative Lou Correa, a Democrat from California, said he was taken aback by the number of Russian and Ukrainian migrants arriving by car when he visited the San Ysidro port of entry between San Diego and Tijuana about a month ago.

A border agent pointed out 20 cars that had been pulled over, saying they were full of Ukrainian and Russian migrants, Correa recalled.

“This problem is not going away,” Correa said.

Under a pandemic-era U.S. policy known as Title 42, most migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are rapidly expelled without a chance to claim asylum.

Those arriving on foot at official pedestrian crossings are usually turned back before they reach American soil. Vehicles are stopped less frequently.

Thus, some migrants are buying cheap cars in Mexico to enhance their chances of getting across the U.S. border to make their claims, according to former U.S. Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott. “It’s a way to jump the line,” he said.

In December, CBP said 18 Russian migrants sped towards the San Ysidro port of entry in two cars. A CBP officer shot at the vehicles, striking one which collided with the other, according to a Dec. 14 CBP statement. Two of the migrants suffered minor head injuries, the agency said. At the same time, a third car carrying eight Russian nationals made it into the United States, the statement said.

Migrants who claim they’ve gained entry to the United States via Mexico are now sharing tips with hopefuls on Russian YouTube and through private group chats on secure apps like Telegram.

There they describe routes and share names and numbers of contacts who can help them procure cars. In a recent exchange in one Russian-language Telegram group, viewed by Reuters, a chat member said “helpers” charge at least $1,500 per person to provide a car. Another was trying to find a seat in a car for his Ukrainian mother.

Some Russians and Ukrainians have also tried crossing between ports of entry. In the early morning hours of Jan. 22 near Yuma, Arizona, a Reuters photographer saw a young Ukrainian couple with twin baby girls and a boy turn themselves over to U.S. border agents and ask for asylum.

Jessica Bolter, an immigration expert at the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute, said the relatively high approval rates for both Russian and Ukrainian asylum seekers in U.S. immigration courts could prove a lure for others.

Government data from the 2022 fiscal year show that about three-quarters of Russians and half of Ukrainians who had applied earlier for asylum were ultimately successful in court, though such cases can take years to process in the backlogged U.S. system.

The Mexico route is also attractive because it’s relatively easy for Russians and Ukrainians to obtain visas to fly to Mexico as tourists, then head for the U.S. border, Bolter said. U.S. tourist visa requirements are much more stringent.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday that his country is committed to supporting Ukrainian refugees.

“We are not going to close the country,” he said.

RISKS OF STAYING ‘TOO GREAT’

Zubarev, the Russian dissident, said he was the deputy coordinator for Navalny’s campaign headquarters in the city of Vladivostok in 2017. That year, agents from Russia’s federal security service searched Zubarev’s apartment, according to a complaint he filed with the European Court of Human Rights which was viewed by Reuters.

Zubarev said in an interview that when Navalny’s movement was designated as extremist last year by the Russian government, “my legs buckled from under me. I knew what would happen next,” he said. “It was just a matter of time before the risks to my personal safety became too great.”

Several of his fellow activists had traveled to the United States via Mexico before him, and shared the route they took, he said. After he arrived in Mexico, he took a couple of days to rest in a hotel in Cancun, before heading to the border. There, he connected with other Russians looking to cross into the United States.

Zubarev would not say how the group obtained the car, but Reuters spoke with an intermediary who has helped Russians find vehicles in Tijuana.

“It’s different with them than other migrants, because they have more resources,” the intermediary said.

After asking for U.S. asylum, Zubarev said he was detained for 53 hours in a frigid border station cell with about 15 other migrants.

After making his way to Connecticut, he dusted off his engineering background and started a business working with fiber optic cables as he waits for his case to be decided.

(Reporting by Dasha Afanasieva in London, Ted Hesson in Washington, and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz and Laura Gottesdiener in Mexico City, and Go Nakamura in Yuma, Arizona; editing by Mica Rosenberg and Marla Dickerson)

Source: https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-03-04/more-russians-ukrainians-seek-asylum-at-u-s-mexico-border

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“Financial accounts are being chased, gold has been seized and blocked from the legal international reserves of the Central Bank of Venezuela in London, billions of dollars in bank accounts have been seized and blocked in the United States, Europe and more”, Mr. Maduro stated.

According to the President, Venezuelan oil companies are being prevented from trading their products and open bank accounts to make commercial transactions.

“It is a financial, monetary, commercial, economic, energy persecution. It is systematic, cruel and criminal. Venezuela raises its voice to denounce it before the peoples of the world”, he added.

Demanding the end of all sanctions against his country, the President, in a pre-recorded address to the UN General Assembly, said he was grateful for the support of the Organization’s Member States towards this goal.

Recovery phase
Mr. Maduro said that in 2021, his country had gone from a painful phase to a recovery phase, with sustained growth in science, innovation, technology and “spiritual capacity”.

“We have taken the path of recovery and integral growth for our nation. We have taken the path of deploying the productive forces of a country subjected to an infernal blockade, criminal persecution, and the cruel torture of its economic and social body. And can we say to the peoples of the world with courage, decisiveness, intelligence and wisdom: ‘Yes’, we can face the imperial aggressions and move forward”, he underscored.

The President added that this year has also seen Venezuela advance towards an inclusive peace dialogue, as well as the holding of regional and local elections in November.

“We have started several dialogues with business, social, political and union sectors. We have ratified the path of dialogue… recently we had a national peace and sovereignty dialogue on August 13”, he told the Assembly.

He also announced that with the support of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the special diplomatic aid of Norway, the Russian Federation, and the Netherlands, his country was addressing a comprehensive agenda to advance in the social and economic recovery.

A new world
Finally, Mr. Maduro called for the “building of a new world”, free of hegemony and based on the principles of multilateralism and international law.

“A new world that emerges from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and from the native peoples of the United States of America. A new world that is reborn to end the old hegemonies, to put an end to the pretense of some to become policemen and judges of all the peoples of the world”, he said, adding that this new world needed a new United Nations as well.

“Venezuela stands up with its own voice for that new world”, he concluded.

Source: https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/09/1100822

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EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A second major migrant caravan could be assembling in southern Mexico shortly.

Activist Irineo Mujica, who is currently leading upwards of 1,000 Central and Haitian migrants through the state of Oaxaca, said he’s expecting to meet up with a caravan 10 times larger in nearby Veracruz on November 18.

“We are not going to Mexico City, we are now going the northern border, we are going to Sonora,” Mujica said this week on social media. “For that reason, I am calling on all our migrant peers in Tapachula, in Coatzcoalcos, in Tabasco, in Acayuca […] to gather on the 18th of this month.”

Oscar El Blue@Oscarelblue
Breaking: Oaxaca MEXICO. Leader of the caravan of 4000 Irineo Mujica says that they are going to the north border of Sonora that connects to Arizona and he will built a bigger caravan of 10,000. @AgueroForTexas @BenBergquam @GriffJenkins @RealAmVoice @AliBradleyTV @UNITE_USA_1st

That’s the same date President Biden is scheduled to meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to talk – among other things – about immigration. The timing could be more than coincidental.

“It seems to me that Mexico is using the caravans as leverage with the United States. Otherwise, the 18,000 Haitians that made it to Del Rio, Texas, would not have made it that far. They were allowed to transit through Mexico and make it to the border,” said Tony Payan, director of the Center for the U.S. and Mexico at Rice University’s Baker Institute.

The September migrant crisis in Del Rio drew international attention as thousands of Haitians, including families with small children, waded across the Rio Grande and formed a gigantic camp under the international bridge. Images of Border Patrol agents on horseback charging to contain the surge went viral on social media.

Lopez Obrador is pushing for the U.S. to ramp up worker visas for Mexicans, many of whom are already trying to cross the border by any means available after being displaced by narco-violence in the countryside in states like Michoacan, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Zacatecas, Durango and others. AMLO, as Lopez Obrador is known, also wants the U.S. to “invest” in economic development in Southern Mexico and Central America.

“Every time a caravan comes to the border, it creates a political problem for the Biden administration. Not only do they have to deal with the asylum-seekers, but it also gives political gunpowder to Biden’s critics in the GOP and states like Texas to portray his policies as failed policies,” Payan said. “It’s not a good thing. It distracts him from other issues.”

Mujica, a U.S. citizen affiliated with the nonprofit Pueblo Sin Fronteras (People Without Borders), in late October led 4,000 out of Tapachula, a city near the border with Guatemala which he characterized as an “open-air prison” for migrants from all over the world. Most of the Haitians that showed up at Del Rio a month before also left from Tapachula.

In a Tuesday news conference in Mexico City, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar allegedly accused caravan organizers of benefiting smugglers who make money off of the migrants.

“The organizers say they are doing something for human rights. In reality, what they are doing is making money for the smugglers and criminals,” Milenio and Infobae quoted Salazar as saying.

The statement incensed Mujica.

“I completely refute what the ambassador said,” Mujica said on social media, pulling out his wallet open for the cameras. “This is my wallet, ambassador. I have nothing. […] Your intelligence (agents), are they not telling you I don’t even have money for tortillas? Where are you and what world are you living on?”

Oscar El Blue@Oscarelblue
Breaking: Leader of caravan Irineo Mujica Sends a direct message to the ambassador of the United States in Mexico: show me the millions that I’m stealing from the people, show me the millions in my account”.@AgueroForTexas @BenBergquam @GriffJenkins @AliBradleyTV

Mujica said the United States’ immigration policy has been a “disaster” and its officials are now turning to slandering him. “You should be ashamed of yourselves, ambassador, because you and Mexico have de-humanized migrants. What low morals you have,” the activist said.

This new wave of migrant caravans is also bad for business.

“There has to be some hard discussion on working together to prevent that because when (the caravans) reach the U.S. border and apply for asylum, that takes (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) officers off the vehicle inspection lanes and the cargo lanes and that slows down trade,” said Jerry Pacheco, president and CEO of the Border Industrial Association.

Pacheco said Mexico should “actively participate” in dissuading the northbound caravans because neither U.S. companies that invest south of the border nor their Mexican partners want to see their trucks being held up or enduring long waits at ports of entry. “Immigration has a direct impact on trade,” he added.

Payan of the Baker Institute concurs that the caravans have become an international political distraction.

“I think the caravans are absolutely distracting and it’s absolutely necessary that the United States convinces Mexico not to allow them to form, march through Mexico and get to the border,” Payan said. When that happens, “everything else is off and all the attention, all the resources go to dealing with asylum-seekers.”

Source: https://www.borderreport.com/hot-topics/immigration/new-10000-strong-migrant-caravan-would-leave-for-u-s-the-day-north-american-leaders-summit-starts/

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Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at a press conference in Mexico City, Mexico, June 2019 – Francisco Canedo / Xinhua / Redux

US. President Joe Biden has vowed a return to diplomatic normalcy instead of personal lunacy, multilateralism instead of unilateralism, and a foreign policy conducted through institutionalized channels instead of through Twitter. Most foreign governments have greeted the change with relief—but the applause has not been unanimous. Some countries benefited from the lack of engagement or scrutiny they got under former President Donald Trump. Mexico, in particular, looks set to receive Biden’s agenda not with open arms but with a raised fist.

Whether out of political pragmatism or genuine fear, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador cultivated close ties with Trump and acquiesced to U.S. demands to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and control immigration. In return, Trump turned a blind eye to the emergence of an authoritarian populist regime that began to renege on many of the commitments it had undertaken as a North American partner.

Now, López Obrador is making no secret of his desire to pick a fight with Biden. He refused to congratulate the president-elect early on and then sent a belated and frosty congratulatory note that sharply contrasted with the effusive letter he wrote to Trump in 2016. He passed a law imposing restrictions on foreign agents operating in Mexico, including those from the CIA, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the FBI. He backtracked on energy reform—something his predecessor implemented in order to encourage foreign investment—auguring a return to an energy policy dominated by state monopolies. And he suggested that the Mérida Initiative for bilateral security could be terminated. In case these measures did not send a direct enough message, the Mexican president has further offered political asylum to Julian Assange, refused to condemn the violence that Trump supporters unleashed at the U.S. Capitol, lambasted Facebook and Twitter for “censoring” Trump, and invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit Mexico. Clearly, López Obrador is setting the stage for confrontation with the new administration in the White House.

Turmoil in the bilateral relationship with Mexico does not seem to have made the Biden team’s radar or its list of priorities. But a return to the U.S.-Mexican relationship before NAFTA, when conflict and distance prevailed over cooperation, could set back many of the objectives that the Biden administration considers vital. The United States needs Mexican cooperation on security, trade policy, and the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Nor can it afford a Mexico that slides backward on democracy, refuses to view climate change as an existential threat, or fails to control a pandemic that does not respect borders. Mexico’s president is spoiling for a fight, and Washington must not wait for risks to become inevitabilities that could imperil containment of the pandemic and recovery from the disruption it has wrought.

AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE

The Trump administration neglected most Latin American issues, exercised a heavy hand in Cuba and Venezuela, and obsessed over immigration and the border with Mexico. During his presidential campaign and throughout his term in office, Trump used Mexico as a “political piñata” in an effort to rile his electoral base: Mexicans were “rapists” and “criminals,” the United States was besieged by caravans of illegal immigrants, and NAFTA was a bad deal that needed to be renegotiated in order to defend American interests. These recurrent themes translated into policies—such as the construction of a wall on parts of the U.S.-Mexican border—that placed Mexico on the defensive due to the asymmetry in the relationship.

López Obrador chose to deal with Trump’s unpredictability by pursuing a calculated policy of appeasement. As a candidate for president in 2018, López Obrador had voiced strong criticism of Trump’s anti-Mexican and anti-immigration stances—he even published a book called Oye, Trump (Hey, Trump). But once in office, López Obrador reversed positions and forged a pragmatic alliance with the man he had once decried. When Trump escalated his anti-immigration rhetoric and threatened to impose tariffs on Mexican exports, López Obrador began clamping down on the Central Americans he had initially welcomed and to whom he had promised safe transit.

Trump had frequently stated that Mexico would end up paying for the border wall: in fact, Mexico became the wall. Its government treated immigrants in a fashion that its politicians had often denounced, deploying the newly formed and militarized National Guard to chase them down and deport them.

López Obrador forged a modus vivendi with Trump in which Mexico accepted every demand, made multiple concessions, and adopted immigration policies that it had once deemed unacceptable. The Mexican government allowed the United States to unilaterally impose its so-called Remain in Mexico policy, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, wherein immigrants filing asylum claims in the United States were deported back across the border to wait indefinitely, even though Mexico was unable to provide security for its own population, let alone immigrants, amid rising crime and violence.

Part of López Obrador’s compliance took the form of silence. A humanitarian crisis mounted in Mexico’s border region, but the country’s president continued to acquiesce in the policies that created it. The United States imposed family separation policies and confined children in cages, but the Mexican president said nothing. U.S. immigration authorities conducted raids and arbitrarily deported Mexicans, without provoking comment from the president. And anti-Mexican sentiments crested in the United States, culminating in hate crimes such as the massacre in El Paso in 2019. Still, López Obrador looked the other way.

He did so in return for Trump’s turning a blind eye to democratic recession in Mexico. At the helm of what López Obrador calls the country’s “Fourth Transformation,” the president has dismantled checks and balances and weakened the country’s autonomous institutions. He regularly attacks the news media and civil society and has seized discretionary control of the budget. Some of his policies have reinforced the militarization of public security. In all, the Mexican president seems intent on propelling his country back to an era of dominant party rule.

Because Mexico lacks a cohesive opposition, López Obrador’s dream of centralized control seems close to becoming a reality. The president has mismanaged the COVID-19 crisis, which has produced a catastrophic economic recession, but his popularity remains undented. He has even stated that the pandemic le cayó como anillo al dedo, which loosely translates as “fell like manna from heaven,” because the emergency enabled him to carry out exceptional antidemocratic measures that might have met resistance in more normal times.

Trump and López Obrador shared some obvious affinities. Both tended to discredit the news media, insult opposition leaders, label criticism as “fake news,” avoid facemasks, and minimize the threat from COVID-19. The Mexican leader hailed his American counterpart as a true leader, compared him to Abraham Lincoln, and even traveled to Washington D.C., in the midst of the pandemic to endorse Trump’s presidential reelection bid and praise his respect for Mexico’s sovereignty. The relationship was so amiable that when the United States arrested General Salvador Cienfuegos—a former Mexican secretary of defense—on drug charges, López Obrador persuaded Washington to return the general to Mexico. The DEA had spent five years amassing evidence against Cienfuegos, but Trump’s attorney general requested that the prosecution drop its case. Mexico’s government celebrated the general’s return as a triumph of close ties between friends.

Such talk has ceased with the change in U.S. administration. The Mexican president who so recently stressed friendship now seems poised to wrap himself in his national flag and defend his country’s honor, which he sees as under threat. The reasons behind this abrupt shift are both personal and political. López Obrador does not fear Biden the way he feared Trump. And so a politically calculated discourse of national sovereignty and anti-Americanism is again more useful than costly. With it, López Obrador can rally his base in advance of the midterm elections in July 2021, when 15 governorships and control of Congress will be at stake. He can make Biden a foil and a distraction from Mexico’s deep economic recession and the ravages of COVID-19.

But beyond the political imperatives that are driving López Obrador’s divergence with Biden, something deeper is at stake. López Obrador’s nationalistic, enclosed, and less globalized vision of Mexico contradicts the spirit in which free trade was conceived. At its best, NAFTA reinforced political stability and economic development in Mexico, helping inoculate the country against pendular policy shifts and conflict with the Unites States. The agreement sought to recognize and promote integration—a goal from which López Obrador has recoiled, pushing instead for a return to an inward-looking economic model reminiscent of the 1970s. López Obrador’s contentious shift threatens to derail much of what has been accomplished in the last two decades, and Washington should be paying attention.

PICKING A FIGHT

Two years ago, López Obrador signed on to a renegotiated version of NAFTA known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). But many of the Mexican president’s policies run counter to the treaty’s provisions and the broader goal of engagement with the world. Mexico City was to construct an international airport that would serve as a Latin American hub, but López Obrador put a stop to the project. He has tried to ensure that state monopolies can continue to dominate the energy sector by revising gas contracts with foreign investors and wrenching control from autonomous energy regulators, among other measures. Mexico has become less attractive to investors in emerging markets as a result. The country’s economic growth was decelerating even before the pandemic. Now, its GDP is predicted to contract by nine percent in 2021, as thousands of businesses close and millions of jobs disappear.

López Obrador may well anticipate that he will face criticism from the United States under Biden on trade and other issues. The Mexican president surely would rather not face scrutiny for his record on human rights and freedom of expression, let alone for his failure to adhere to the labor standards stipulated under the USMCA or the free trade clauses on energy. If and when the Biden administration decides to pressure Mexico on such matters, López Obrador will denounce “imperialistic intervention” and deflect attention to his fight with the American president.

In truth, trouble has been brewing in the U.S. security and trade relationship with Mexico for some time. López Obrador promised the Trump administration that Mexico would investigate Cienfuegos upon his return to Mexico but then broke that promise and even released confidential files on the case that the DEA had provided. The Justice Department sent a strong letter of condemnation. Three outgoing Trump cabinet members took a similarly acrimonious tone in a letter condemning Mexico for undermining trade commitments in the energy sector. In response, López Obrador has insisted that Mexico has the sovereign right to determine domestic policies, despite its obligations under the USMCA. His tone has not been collaborative or consensual but belligerent.

Mexico’s dustup with the DEA and U.S. security agencies spells trouble for cooperation in the crucial areas of security and drug trafficking. The Mexican military has come to act with ever-greater autonomy and ever-less civilian control or accountability. This empowered Mexican military resists working with U.S. intelligence agencies, perhaps because it has ties to drug cartels and seeks to shield its high officials from justice. The new foreign-agent law in Mexico further limits the ability of U.S. law enforcement agents to operate and share information. The result is that Washington increasingly sees Mexico as an unreliable partner in a host of important areas.

CONFLICT FORETOLD

Biden’s agenda in Latin America appears to begin with immigration. He has already announced an economic aid and security plan designed to address the root causes that drive people to flee north. His other priorities include rebuilding bridges with Cuba and addressing the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, as he seeks to promote democracy and human rights in the region while combating corruption. Mexico does not seem to register as a prime concern.

But many of Biden’s ambitious plans, particularly regarding immigration, will require extensive collaboration with Mexico at a time when an ill wind seems to be blowing between the two countries. The new administration may be caught in the uncomfortable position of requesting Mexico’s assistance to stem the flow of Central American caravans even while butting heads with López Obrador over democracy, human rights, labor standards, and climate change. If Biden decides to exchange cooperation on immigration for silence on other troublesome issues, he will be repeating the Trump playbook and allowing problems to fester.

Many such difficulties have grown more acute in the past year. Mexico has one of the highest COVID-19 lethality rates in the world. The pandemic is escalating in a country that shares a 2,000-mile, porous border with the United States, and so is violence: Mexico had 35,000 homicides in 2020, the highest recorded in the country’s history. López Obrador responded by empowering the military at the expense of bilateral security cooperation. Lockdowns have squeezed the country’s economy, but the government has refused to implement fiscal policies to mitigate the damage. And López Obrador seems more intent on resurrecting a carbon- and oil-based economy than in pushing the country to address the imperatives of climate change.

Yet the Biden team seems oblivious to the democratic regression, the economic debacle, and the uncontrolled pandemic in Mexico. The administration has designated Cuba and Venezuela as countries of concern, and it has made public statements centering largely on Central America and migratory and asylum issues. But Mexico remains a dangerous blind spot. López Obrador’s nationalistic populism and the risk it poses to democracy, climate change, and the fight against corruption are startlingly absent from an agenda that purportedly prioritizes such concerns. The United States needs a Mexico policy designed to rein in López Obrador’s worst instincts and bring him back into the North American fold in order to assure a politically and economically stable neighbor.

Jeffrey Davidow, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, once likened the relationship between the two countries to one between a bear and a porcupine. The United States looms large over Mexico, choosing at times to bluster and at others to hibernate, withdrawing its attention altogether. Hypersensitive to U.S. interference, Mexico always stands ready to show its quills. The U.S.-Mexican relationship has important ramifications for trade, security, drugs, energy, and even health, and the López Obrador government seeks to counter Biden’s priorities on almost every front. If Biden doesn’t find a way to reset the relationship, Mexico and the United States will return to a pattern of neglect, punctuated by instances of conflict—a renewed porcupine politics that will draw blood from both countries amid a pandemic that demands collaborative solutions, not animal instincts.

DENISE DRESSER is a Professor of Political Science at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico.

Source: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/mexico/2021-02-01/mexicos-president-spoiling-fight-washington

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The plan was established to keep people from flocking to the United States’ southern border. But now, Mexico is seeing a massive influx of caravan riders, primarily from Honduras. This new caravan was originally supposed to have roughly 2,000 people on it. According to Mexico, that number is now around 12,000, Breitbart reported.

Under Obrador’s new plan, those who see asylum in Mexico are granted a one-year humanitarian visa, which allows them to work and travel throughout the country. The new visa program being offered is believed to be the reason more Central Americans are flocking to Mexico, and eventually, the United States.

Caravan riders decide to apply for the humanitarian visa in Mexico and work while their asylum application with the United States is being processed. Some, however, are still deciding to cross into America illegally. We’re not even a full month into 2019 and already Border Patrol arrests are up 280 percent from the same time in 2018. A couple weeks ago, Border Patrol arrested 247 illegal aliens, something that is becoming more and more common.

Right now, the caravan’s plans remain unclear. For all we know, they could travel northbound towards our border, where we’d, more than likely, see another stand off with Border Patrol.

Source: https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2019/01/27/caravan-20-the-numbers-are-massive-even-by-mexicos-count-n2540320

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