Status: 07/12/2022 1:10 p.m
Mexico’s President Lopez Obrador visits US President Biden to negotiate immigration policy. In the United States, the topic is present with the recent discovery of dead migrants in a truck – but relations with Mexico are clouded.
Like hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, Yovani and Yair Olivares wanted to live the great American dream. The 16 and 19 year old brothers from the Mexican state of Veracruz believed in a better life in the USA. But they died, dehydrated and overheated, in a locked truck parked 150 miles from the Mexico border in San Antonio, Texas.
The American dream – an illusion, says the father of the two young men, Teofilo Antonio: “They wanted to work in order to have a better future. I lost a large part of my life with my two sons, my world collapsed.”
Few chances of getting a work visa
They wanted to stay four years and then return to their parents with their savings. But for a work visa in the USA, the chances for Mexicans and Central Americans are poor. That’s why the young men decided to take the risky route – and organized their trip with the help of people smugglers.
For a total of 53 people, 27 from Mexico, 14 from Honduras, seven from Guatemala and two from El Salvador, this decision ended in death at the end of June.
Soraya Vázquez from the Mexican human rights organization “Al otro Lado” criticizes the US migration policy. She is cruel and inhuman:
People are fleeing violence in their countries and want to save their lives. When the border is closed and there is no other option for people to enter the country legally, then organized crime and human smuggling is the only option left to people.
“Bitter proof” of the need
In order to avoid human smuggling and the resulting disasters in the future, Mexico’s President López Obrador wants to renegotiate central issues of immigration and migration policy at the meeting with US President Joe Biden in Washington. The status of the migrants must be clarified, the number of temporary work visas increased.
López Obrador wants to demand from Biden 150,000 visas a year for migrants from Mexico and 150,000 visas for migrants from Central America. The migrants who died illegally entering the United States in a truck in Texas are bitter proof that we must give strong support to people who are in need of leaving their homes.
Most recently, Mexico’s President Andreas Manuel Lopez Obrador was a guest of US President Joe Biden in 2021 – then the upset came before the America summit.
Image: AP
Difficult Relationships
In recent months, the number of illegal border crossings into the USA has risen sharply. The pandemic and inflation have further deteriorated the economic and supply situation in Mexico and Central America. That is why the heads of state also want to talk about common ways out of the crisis. Another issue should be security.
However, the relationship between López Obrador and Biden is not really good. A month ago, the Mexican President stayed away from the Americas summit. With his rejection, he showed his solidarity with left-wing authoritarian states such as Cuba and Venezuela, which were excluded from the summit. The US, in turn, criticizes Mexico’s lack of efforts towards a more sustainable environmental policy.