President Joe Biden has shifted his focus away from critical border negotiations with Republicans to instead conduct emergency border negotiations with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. This diplomatic switch comes as Biden’s flood of several million illegal migrants is damaging his 2024 poll ratings further. Additionally, GOP leaders are using their Senate clout to demand real border reforms.
According to one US official, “Everything revolves around getting the Mexican government to do targeted operations” against the cartels’ migration business. Biden’s problem is that he “is refusing to enforce immigration law,” said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies. Furthermore, the migrant numbers that the administration is currently experiencing are unprecedented. This has led to the legacy media to start to notice. Instead of using his legal tools to fix the issue, Krikorian says, “Biden is begging Mexico for help to fix the problem.”
Biden’s outreach to Mexico is complicating the high-profile US negotiations between the White House and GOP senators. Democrats had included Biden’s pro-migration border chief, Alejandro Mayorkas, in the Senate talks and “made sure Mayorkas was in the room,” says Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the Democrats’ leader in the Senate. Despite this, the negotiations have been halted due to Biden’s shift in focus to negotiations with Mexico.
In an effort to secure Mexico’s help, the Biden administration is requesting that the Mexican government conducts targeted operations against the cartels’ migration business, which they believe would help in stemming the flow of illegal migrants into the US. The US official stated that Mexico has already increased its efforts to combat the illegal migration of individuals, but the US government is seeking additional targeted operations.
As negotiations between the White House and GOP senators come to a halt, the Biden administration is relying on Mexico to help secure the border and stop the flow of illegal migrants. However, the US administration’s request for targeted operations may be complicated by the fact that the Mexican government is hesitant to be seen as cooperating with the US on controversial immigration measures.
While Biden’s focus on negotiations with Mexico may provide some relief to his administration, the lack of border reforms and enforcement of immigration law could have a significant impact on his poll ratings and potentially hurt his chances for re-election in 2024. In fact, the poor results from the scrape the web tool attached to the document provided eliminates the possibility of good news in the short term.