President Biden’s top cabinet officials and their Mexican counterparts met Thursday as both countries sought a united front on drug and gun trafficking and managing record levels of migration.
The U.S. officials — Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick B. Garland — are particularly focused on bolstering efforts with Mexico to curtail the stream of deadly fentanyl wreaking havoc in communities throughout the United States.
But officials made a point to elevate the significance of the current global migration movement that has strained resources on both sides of the border.
“It is unquestionable that we have made real progress,” Mr. Blinken said on Thursday, referring to the ongoing cooperation between the two countries on these issues. “We may have to make sure that our progress not only keeps up with the challenges, but actually gets ahead of them.”
The meetings came as the Biden administration waived laws so it could construct 17 miles of new border fencing in Texas. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico opposes the construction of a wall, and the new plans risk splintering the two nation’s strategies on migration.
The discussions also came as Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail, including former President Donald J. Trump, have proposed military action against cartels in Mexico, an idea that has angered Mexican officials.
Mr. Blinken, Mr. Garland and Mr. Mayorkas met privately Thursday morning with Mr. López Obrador. American officials thanked Mexico for extraditing a top leader in the Sinaloa cartel, Ovidio Guzmán López, to the United States last month.
“His extradition is a powerful symbol of what we can accomplish when we work together,” Mr. Garland said after the meeting.
American and Mexican officials have adopted increasingly critical rhetoric over the best way to block the trafficking of the synthetic drug, which is driving down life expectancy in the United States. The Biden administration wants Mexican law enforcement to crack down on labs where it is produced.
“The fentanyl being trafficked into the United States is the deadliest drug threat we have ever faced,” Mr. Garland said in a statement to The New York Times on Wednesday. “To fight it, we are going after every link in the cartels’ fentanyl trafficking networks, at every stage, and in every part of the world.”
During their visit, Mr. Garland, Mr. Mayorkas and Mr. Blinken met with a range of Mexican officials, including Mr. López Obrador’s his foreign minister, Alicia Bárcena Ibarra; and his security secretary, Rosa Icela Rodríguez. The Mexican officials urged the Biden administration to do more to keep American made firearms from making it into the hands of the Mexican cartels.
Officials from both nations will hold a news conference on Thursday afternoon, but they are not expected to unveil new policies.
U.S. officials in recent weeks have pushed Mexico to invest more resources to intercept the chemicals shipped from China to Mexico’s ports and used to make fentanyl.
But Mr. López Obrador has denied fentanyl is made in Mexico and has said his nation should not be blamed for the record number of overdoses in the United States.
“Fortunately, we do not have excessive addictions, drug consumption, like other countries, and that is very good,” Mr. López Obrador said during his regularly scheduled news briefing on Thursday before meeting with the U.S. officials. “We regret what is happening in the United States, which are our brothers but have a consumption of fentanyl that causes 100,000 deaths a year of young people. We do not have that.”
The two nations will also aim to improve their strategy for deterring illegal migration in the Western Hemisphere — one of Mr. Biden’s primary political vulnerabilities as the 2024 presidential campaign ramps up.
“Today’s high level security dialogue is the first to include migration as part of its agenda, an essential component of our national and regional security,” Mr. Mayorkas said Thursday morning.
U.S. Border Patrol officials recorded more than 200,000 apprehensions of migrants illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexican border in September, the highest monthly total so far this year. They include about 50,000 apprehensions of Venezuelans, according to an administration official who spoke anonymously to confirm the preliminary data. CBS News earlier reported the border crossing data.
As migrants have overwhelmed border communities and cities throughout the United States, the Biden administration has increasingly relied on Mexico and Central American countries to create legal pathways for immigrants and to bolster their own border security to prevent people from making the journey north.
U.S. officials are particularly optimistic about the development of a new migration processing center in southern Mexico where migrants can apply for refugee status in the United States and not risk the dangerous journey of crossing into the United States illegally.
Mr. López Obrador recently called for a summit to address migration, specifically for Latin American nations. He snubbed a similar summit hosted by Mr. Biden last year.
On Thursday morning, Mr. López Obrador criticized the Biden administration’s decision to construct 17 miles of border wall in Texas.
“People do not leave their towns for pleasure; they do it out of necessity,” Mr. López Obrador told reporters on Thursday. “So it is not a question of holding them back with barriers, with walls.”
The Biden administration is waiving more than 20 laws, including environmental ones, to expand barriers along the border. It was a significant reversal for Mr. Biden, who promised during his campaign that “not another foot” of border wall would be erected after the Trump administration.
“This authorization for the construction of the wall is a step backward because it does not solve the problem,” Mr. López Obrador said. “We have to address the causes.” Mexico has pushed the United States to invest more in Latin America to improve conditions in migrants’ home countries.
As the number of border crossings has soared, so, too, has the criticism against Mr. Biden from members of his own Democratic Party who are straining to provide assistance to migrants arriving in their cities from the border.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois wrote a letter to the president this week saying, “The federal government’s lack of intervention and coordination at the border has created an untenable situation for Illinois.” And New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, has for months criticized the Biden administration, warning that the tens of thousands of migrants will exhaust municipal resources.
Mr. Adams was also in Mexico City on Wednesday and Thursday, but did not participate in the high level talks. He is traveling to Central and South America this week.
Mexico has also been pressing the Biden administration to do more to stop the smuggling of firearms and other weapons from the United States to Mexico. U.S. officials said, however, that American laws make it easy to buy and resell firearms.