Shifting border as US and Mexico look inward

Management of the US-Mexico border is entering a new chapter, with growing questions about how major policy and political changes on both sides of the Rio Grande will affect migration patterns.

President Biden on Tuesday announced an executive order cracking down on asylum, potentially changing the calculus for tens of thousands of migrants hoping to enter the United States, just two days after Mexico’s ruling party won a massive election victory that consolidated its grip on power.

Major changes to U.S. border policy often lead to temporary pauses in crossings, a delay Biden would welcome as the U.S. election heats up.

But Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has so far been the key factor in controlling crossing numbers; López Obrador took on the task of implementing continental migration in the middle of a presidential election that would make or break his legacy.

The Biden administration has gone to great lengths to avoid criticizing López Obrador’s efforts to restrict Mexico’s independent electoral institute and other autonomous democratic institutions, and timed his border announcement to come after the election of his successor.

“I think [López Obrador] achieved many things [from the United States], not only during the electoral cycle, but also during the last five years of his administration. I mean, the White House has been silent on many undemocratic measures that have occurred under their administration,” said Lila Abed, acting director of the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute.

López Obrador’s chosen successor, former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, will take office on October 1.

Sheinbaum was expected to win the election, but she – and López Obrador’s Morena party – won a landslide victory that put Morena just a few Senate seats away from a constitutional absolute majority.

“I think Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to be completely honest with you, is more focused on passing his constitutional and legal forms in Congress than on cooperating with the United States,” Abed said.

These reforms, which include an electoral overhaul and sweeping changes to the judicial system, have been in López Obrador’s sights for some time, but his legislative supporters did not have the two-thirds majority needed to reform the constitution.

Morena officials have indicated they will move forward with the reforms in September, before Sheinbaum’s inauguration, shaking financial markets and sending the peso falling from 17 to the dollar before the elections to 18 on Thursday.

This instability, along with the near certainty of achieving his much-desired judicial reform, will draw López Obrador’s attention to domestic issues and the transition as the United States litigates its own federal elections.

Biden’s announcement Tuesday, a historic rollback of asylum rights, followed two failed votes in the Senate to codify similar asylum restrictions into law.

The Republicans made the votes in the Senate unfeasible, the result of a bipartisan negotiation that lasted months between centrists and conservatives.

The Biden administration saw these failed votes as an opportunity to highlight Republican inaction at the border by unilaterally enacting its own strict measures.

It’s unclear whether independent voters were impressed by the measure, but Biden’s progressive allies were not.

“He will never get credit from Fox News or, you know, or the Trumpsters for anything he does. Like the last time he made an anti-asylum policy change, I walked into the committee the next day — every Republican member of Congress was still calling him ‘Open Borders, Biden,'” said Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas ).

But asylum restrictions have fueled calls to expand legal pathways, both for migrants leaving their countries and long-term undocumented immigrants in the United States.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus responded furiously to Biden’s plans and made clear its expectations for a subsequent liberalization of the rules for some undocumented immigrants to rectify their paperwork.

The asylum announcement was not a surprise: Rumors about its imminent arrival after the Mexican elections had circulated among immigration watchers for weeks.

The likelihood of an immigrant aid package has been similarly telegraphed, though progressives say they won’t count their money until the deal is reached.

“I’ve learned that nothing is guaranteed around here, so we’re going to keep pushing until, you know, the ink is dry,” Casar said.

And the Biden administration is on edge after implementing asylum restrictions generated predictable confusion and anger from the right, but not much praise.

Officials held several calls with reporters throughout the week explaining the contents of the executive order. On Friday, senior administration officials expressed frustration with “the misconceptions that exist” about the asylum rule and the presidential proclamation “because we continue to see some reporting that seems to misunderstand how the two work together and the changes they have made.” . made to our processes at the border.”

Misunderstandings about how the new policy will work appear to transcend borders.

López Obrador said his administration wants the Biden administration to reach agreements to directly deport third-country citizens to their home countries, potentially reducing the number of non-Mexicans expelled to Mexico.

“We are seeking an agreement so that they can reach an agreement so that if they decide to deport someone, they will do so directly. And we are helping to reach that agreement. Because they come to Mexico and – we have no problem, we treat them, the migrants, everyone very well. But why triangulate?” López Obrador at his daily press conference on Wednesday.

The Biden administration’s asylum restrictions — like those of the Trump administration before them — depend on Mexico’s willingness to take in a number of third-country citizens who are expelled shortly after encountering U.S. authorities at the border.

So far, Mexico has accepted about 30,000 Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Cuban and Haitian citizens per month, but the details of any permanent or future agreements on the matter are murky.

This highlights the core problem that makes global migration so difficult to manage, as opposed to other cross-border issues such as trade, according to Abed.

“Trade disputes, energy, biotechnology, GMO, corn, automobile – the rules of origin of the automobile sector, they all have a way to be resolved,” said Abed, citing the mechanisms of the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement Dispute Resolution by Agreement for example.

“Migration, on the other hand, is not easily resolved. It includes an interdisciplinary and transversal strategy, a comprehensive regional strategy that must address poverty, inequality, violence, political instability, lack of economic opportunities and climate change. I mean, these are huge problems. They don’t have a clear path on how to resolve them.”