Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Monday expressed skepticism about President Joe Biden's promise to “close the border.”
biden Said Over the weekend, he vowed to “close” the U.S.-Mexico border if Congress passes a Democratic immigration bill that includes military aid to Ukraine and Israel.
The Senate is currently negotiating the details. invoiceit has been reported that a “forced closure” will be implemented if 5,000 migrants are arrested in a single day.
In a press conference on Monday, López Obrador denounced Biden's “inflammatory” attempts to boost his dismal approval ratings on immigration ahead of the 2024 presidential election. The Mexican president also predicted that Biden would reverse his course after winning. according to Go to NBC News.
“Why is this proposal being made?” López Obrador said at a press conference on Monday. “Because we have an election! Once the election is over, we have another agenda. But we Mexicans need to be aware of this context. Politically, the time has come. In Mexico and the United States, we We are going through a special time.”
Biden said at a dinner in South Carolina on Saturday that the bill would give him “emergency powers” to “bring the border back under control.” (Related: 'Do we have a border?': Martha McCallum says Kirby Point Blank Biden's immigration policy is a 'failure')
“As president, you will also have emergency powers to close the border until it is back under control,” he said at the event. “If that bill were the law today, I would close the borders right now and fix it right away.”
A former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official echoed López Obrador's words, telling NBC News that the US president's words were purely political.
“We cannot push back 8,000 migrants a day without the approval of the Mexican people,” an anonymous former official was quoted as saying. “What you create is a ferocious momentum in a weakened area of the border.”
The bill would close the border if encounters with migrants exceed an average of 5,000 people over a seven-day period, or 8,500 people in a single day, according to NBC. During the potential closure, 1,400 migrants will be legally allowed to pass through ports of entry, and restrictions will remain in place for at least one week until entry levels fall below 75 percent of the volume that triggered the closure. The same media reported. .
Border Patrol agents currently process migrants crossing the southern border and release about 85% of them with scheduled court dates. Therefore, they are required to appear before an immigration judge to determine whether they will receive asylum or be deported.
Mexico has agreed to accept 30,000 migrants per month from Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, but NBC notes that “many times that number enter the United States from those countries.” .
Concerns about immigration rose sharply The number of immigrants increased from 400,651 in the final fiscal year of former President Donald Trump's administration to more than 1.7 million in Biden's first year. according to Submit to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Since then, that number has rapidly increased to 2.3 million in fiscal 2022, 2.4 million in fiscal 2023, and has already exceeded 785,000 in fiscal 2024, which begins in October 2023.
border guard arrested In December 2023, the number of immigrants will reach a record high of nearly 300,000.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told lawmakers on Friday that the bill would be “dead on arrival” once it was introduced in the House, adding: “The pending proposal in the Senate would allow for up to 150,000 cases per month (per year). This would explicitly allow 1.8 million illegal border crossings.” before the new “shutdown” permission is used. ”
