MEXICO CITY – The United States plans to ship vaccines to Mexico and Canada, officials said Thursday, just as the Biden government quietly pushed Mexico to curb the flow of migrants coming to the border.
The White House plans to send 2.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Mexico and 1.5 million to Canada, according to a White House official, who said logistics on the plan are still being discussed.
Tens of millions of doses of the vaccine have been put on American manufacturing sites. However, although its use has been approved in dozens of countries, the vaccine has not yet been approved by US regulators.
Several European countries suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine this week, a precautionary measure because some people who received the shot later developed blood clots and severe bleeding. But on Thursday, the European drug regulator declared the vaccine safe. AstraZeneca also said that a survey of 17 million people who received the vaccine found that they were less likely than others to develop dangerous blood clots.
The announcement to send the vaccines was at a critical time in negotiations with Mexico. President Biden has moved quickly to dismantle some of former President Trump’s distinctive immigration policies, halt the construction of a border wall, halt the rapid expulsion of children at the border, and pave the way for citizenship for millions of immigrants in the United States To propose states.
But he clings to a central element of Mr. Trump: Rely on Mexico to stop a wave of people heading to the United States.
Biden, who envisioned a resurgence of migrants and the most concern by U.S. agents in two decades, said Mr. Biden, according to Mexican, asked President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico in a video call. officials and another person informed the conversation.
The two presidents also discussed the possibility that the United States would send part of its surplus vaccine supply to Mexico, a senior Mexican official said. Mexico has publicly asked the Biden government to send him doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has not been approved for use in the United States.
Mexican officials claim that efforts to secure vaccines are separate from the migration negotiations. But they acknowledge that relations between the United States and Mexico, which suffered one of the world’s deadliest coronavirus epidemics, would be guided by a load of doses south.
“Both governments work together on the basis of an orderly, secure and regular migration system,” Roberto Velasco, director general of the North American region at Mexico’s foreign ministry, said in a statement, referring to the involvement between the two countries on migration and vaccines. .
But he said there was no quid pro quo for vaccines: “These are two separate issues, because we are looking for a more humane traction system and improved cooperation against COVID-19, to the benefit of our two countries and the region.”
A Biden official declined to comment on talks with Mexico, but noted that both countries have a common goal of reducing migration by addressing its root causes, and said they are working closely together to stream people to to cross the border.
One government official has agreed to increase his presence on his southern border with Guatemala to deter migration from Central America, and local Mexican officials say their country has recently made efforts to send migrants to the northern border with the United States. stop. also.
But there are also signs that Mexico’s commitment to policing migration – a key demand of Mr. Trump, who used the threat of tariffs on all Mexican goods, may have noticed in the waning months of the Trump administration.
From October to December last year, the number of Central Americans arrested by Mexico declined, while detention by U.S. agents increased, according to Mexican government figures and data compiled by The Washington Office on Latin America, a research organization who advocates for human rights.
“The likelihood that the outgoing Trump administration would threaten tariffs again was low, and so there was an incentive for Mexico to return to the standard state of low fear,” said Adam Isacson, a border security expert at The Washington Office in Latin America, said.
The call by the Biden government to do more against migration has put Mexico in a difficult position. While Mr. Trump has heavily armed Mexico to militarize the border, some Mexican officials argue, that his harsh policies can sometimes help reduce their cargo by deterring migrants from making the journey north.
Mr. Biden will be less likely to use threats of tariffs to get its way, officials and analysts say. But now Mexico is being asked to stand in the way of a resurgence of migrants – while the government in Biden is signaling that the United States is more welcome for migrants.
“They look like the good guys and the Mexicans look like the bad guys,” said Cris Ramón, an immigration consultant in Washington, DC.
“All the positive humanitarian policies are being pursued by the Biden government.” Mr. Ramón added, “and then the Mexicans are left with the dirty work.”
Mr. López Obrador is also trying to find a way to increase the capacity to house migrants in shelters bursting at the seams. In a Tuesday statement, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said he was “working with Mexico to increase the capacity to receive families expelled from the country.”
A Mexican law that went into effect in January prohibits authorities from detaining migrant families and children in detention centers, and the lack of space in shelters has become a major problem.
“Shelters are almost collapsing,” said Enrique Valenzuela, a leading coordinator for the Chihuahua government’s migration efforts.
Local officials in Chihuahua and shelter operators say coordination between Mexican and U.S. authorities has crumbled. During the final years of the Trump administration, U.S. officials would notify their Mexican counterparts before expelling migrants across the border, and they would orchestrate the crosses at a handful of well-manned border checkpoints.
Under Biden’s government, they say, customs and border patrol migrants are now depositing at some of the most obscure, understaffed checkpoints, leaving their Mexican counterparts scurrying when they discover dozens of migrants are migrating from the United States.
Local government officials in Ciudad Juárez and shelter operators say Mexico is launching operations to intercept and deport migrants along the northern border. Two of them said almost daily Mexican authorities stopped pickup trucks with families and pickup trucks carrying livestock – along with migrants crouching on the floor to prevent detection.
Part of the reason Mexico is willing to continue striking is that, although it is a country that has long sent people to the north, there is a lot of resentment towards Central American migrants.
“The level of negative attitudes towards migrant flows has risen, so there will be no political cost”, said Mr. López Obrador said, says Tonatiuh Guillén, who will be managing Mexico’s national migration institute in the first half of 2019. “But we did not negotiate with Trump – we gave them a lot and they did not give us anything back,” he added, arguing that the strategy with Mr. Praying had to be different.
Despite the very public tensions with Mexico under Mr. Trump, was mr. López Obrador was wary of the Biden government and was concerned that he would be more willing to interfere in domestic issues such as labor rights or the environment.
Instead, several Mexican officials say, his government pressured the United States to stop Central Americans from migrating by sending humanitarian aid to Honduras and Guatemala following two hurricanes that devastated the countries, and according to many experts, even more people forced to migrate. .
Mexican officials have also asked the United States to send more Hondurans and Guatemalans arrested in the United States directly to their home countries, rather than releasing them to Mexico, making it even harder to try to cross the border again. .
Although the negotiations on migration may be on a separate track from Mexico’s request for surplus vaccines from the United States, the need for them in Mexico is clear.
About 200,000 people died in Mexico from the virus – the third highest death toll in the world – and the country was feeding the population relatively slowly. This poses a potential political risk to Mr. López Obrador, whose party is heading to the crucial election in June that will determine whether the president is in control of the legislature.
“Mexico needs US cooperation to get its economy going and to get vaccines out of the health crisis,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. “There is therefore room for the two countries to reach agreements on the basis of aligned interests rather than open threats.”
Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Michael D. Shear reported from Washington, DC