President of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador received yesterday in Mexico City a delegation of senior officials from the United States led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, and White House Homeland Security Advisor Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall. President López Obrador thanked President Joe Biden for sending the U.S. delegation to Mexico following the two leaders’ telephone conversation last week focused on migration management.
The two countries reaffirmed their existing commitments on fostering an orderly, humane, and regular migration. This includes reinforcing our partnership to address the root causes of migration, such as poverty, inequality, and violence, and for the two countries’ initiative for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. Ongoing cooperation also includes enhanced efforts to disrupt human smuggling, trafficking, and criminal networks, and continuing the work to promote legal instead of irregular migration pathways. Also, both delegations agreed on the importance of maintaining and facilitating the vital bilateral trade at our shared border.
President López Obrador highlighted the commitment of President Biden to pursue regular, orderly, and secure migration. He stressed the need to continue the diplomatic and political engagement with all countries in the region, as well as investing in ambitious development programs throughout the entire hemisphere of the Americas. Both delegations underlined the efforts that the Biden administration is pursuing through development assistance and humanitarian aid, as well as advancing new private investments in the region.
The delegations also discussed the benefit of regularizing the situation of long-term undocumented Hispanic migrants and DACA recipients, who are a vital part of the U.S. economy and society.
The two delegations agreed to meet again in Washington in January 2024 to continue to advance our strong partnership on migration management.
President López Obrador was accompanied by Alicia Bárcena Ibarra, Secretary of Foreign Affairs; Luisa María Alcalde Luján, Secretary of the Interior; Gen. Luis Cresencio Sandoval, Secretary of Defense; Alm. José Rafael Ojeda, Secretary of the Navy; Rosa Icela Rodríguez, Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection; Esteban Moctezuma Barragán, Mexican Ambassador to the United States; Arturo Félix Medina, Undersecretary of Human Rights, Population and Migration, SEGOB; Roberto Velasco Álvarez, Head of the Unit for North America; and Armando López Cárdenas, Advisor to the Commissioner, INM; and Alejandro Celorio, Legal Counselor, SRE.
On behalf of President Biden, the United States was represented by Antony Blinken, Secretary of State; Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security; Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, White House Homeland Security Advisor; Ken Salazar, United States Ambassador to Mexico; and Katie Tobin, Deputy Assistant to the President and NSC Coordinator for the Los Angeles Declaration.
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