MEXICO CITY – Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has become an unlikely ally of former US President Donald Trump’s migration policy. He deployed thousands of troops across Mexico to stop Central American asylum seekers en route to the 2,000-mile border.
Now President Biden is preparing to cover a large part of the immigration legacy of Mr. To undo Trump, while also facing differences with the Mexican populist on a range of other bilateral issues such as security cooperation and climate change.
Cooperation with the Mexican president, despite the differences, is crucial to managing the immigration issue, say political and policy analysts. Mr. Biden undertook an immigration improvement to provide 11 million undocumented migrants, nearly half of whom are Mexicans, with a path to citizenship.
He also wants to put an end to the restrictions on the use of asylum that were introduced during Trump’s years and end a program that required 70,000 asylum seekers in Mexico to wait while their proceedings in the US are assessed.
The shift in policy, which according to the government results in a more humane migration system, has a possible disadvantage: if done too hastily, it could cause a surge in migrants, which for Mr. Praying can be politically disastrous.