CNN
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The Biden administration took additional measures during Tuesday’s North American Leaders’ Summit to prevent immigrants from traveling. to the southern border of the USA.
The latest effort list came in a flash unprecedented movement time It’s in the Western Hemisphere and is designed to block border crossings while making legal immigration programs to the US, Mexico, and Canada more accessible, according to a senior management official.
The success of these measures, however, depends on migrants seeing these options as viable, especially when urgently fleeing deteriorating conditions in their home country.
During his presidency, Joe Biden faced with changing immigration patterns creating unique challenges for administration and expanding federal and local resources. In turn, the issue has increasingly become a political vulnerability for the administration, which has come under fierce criticism from Republicans and Democrats, and has been a major point of contention with partners in the south, primarily Mexico.
After the summit, Biden thanked Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador for “taking steps to get into Mexico those who do not follow the legal paths we have provided, rather than trying to illegally cross the border between the two countries.”
The president spoke about his visit to the border and said the three leaders are working together “to uphold the laws of our country and protect the human rights of migrants facing desperate conditions.”
“We are true partners,” Biden said of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and López Obrador, adding that the three “work together with mutual respect and genuine love to advance a safer and more prosperous future for all of our people.” ”
“We cannot distance ourselves from common problems. We are stronger and better when we work together. The three of us. “We have made tremendous progress together since our last summit,” Biden said.
Administration officials leading Tuesday’s summit underlined the need for a regional response that shares responsibility for halting the flow of migration between hemisphere partners. Tuesday’s announcement is a reflection of that.
The Biden administration has announced the opening of a virtual platform for immigrants – in the US, Mexico or Canada – to find information on the legal pathways they may be eligible for, and the opening of a new resource center in southern Mexico. said the senior management official.
“The United States, Mexico and Canada will be committed to making it possible for immigrants to access our legal pathways through a single platform,” the senior management official told CNN.
The virtual portal is in part a recognition of the difficulties immigrants face as they try to identify legal routes to come to the United States and then navigate the often difficult and arduous process of doing so. Instead, people often look to smugglers who spread misinformation about US policies to travel north – a stumbling block for the Biden administration, which is trying to deter immigrants from using that route.
“This is an experiment,” said the senior administration official, referring to recently launched programs for certain nations wishing to come to the United States.
Work is underway to create the portal and is expected to come together in the next few months.
“We are always in competition with smugglers, so we think it’s really important to have virtual platforms that are easy to access, user-friendly, … can be guided based on information and even purchases and conversations,” the official added.
As part of this effort, the United States is working with Mexico to open real-world centers where immigrants can get information on how to apply to immigrate to the United States, mirroring the immigrant resource center launched in Guatemala. A new center will be established in Tapachula, in southern Mexico, where thousands of immigrants pass on their way to the US-Mexico border.
“We know this is a transit location and so the center can help people stay where they are and apply from there,” the senior management official said.
The announcement raises questions among immigration advocates, who say its effectiveness is unknown for now.
“This is a huge, huge open question,” said one immigration advocate, proving that such an online platform can help thousands of asylum seekers, but also be “out of reach” for many.
The portal is still being built and may not be announced for another few months, so details are still in the air. A big factor, according to experts, is how the administration will determine whether a person has been disqualified in order to be able to seek asylum in the United States.
Tuesday’s summit builds on the meeting held in Los Angeles last year, where countries across the Western Hemisphere adhered to the Los Angeles Declaration on Immigration and Conservation. The summit was a point of contention between the United States and Mexico when President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador downplayed the meeting due to disagreements over who was invited. Mexican officials attended the summit again.
The North American Leaders’ Summit commemorates the six-month anniversary of this declaration.
“We have a very ambitious agenda and that’s why the US has so many commitments on the table at the start of it, and we continue to push other countries,” said the senior administration official, emphasizing that the problem will not be resolved overnight.
