Tag Archives: Alejandro Mayorkas

Mexico celebrates November U.S. border opening, date to be decided

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday cheered a U.S decision to open their shared border in November after more than a year of pandemic restrictions, but added that the precise date was still being worked out.

“The opening of the northern border has been achieved, we are going to have normality in our northern border,” Lopez Obrador said in his daily morning press conference.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas earlier said U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico would reopen in November for fully vaccinated travelers after being closed to non-essential crossings since March 2020 due to the pandemic.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said the border reopening will coincide with a push to reactivate economic activities in the frontier region, where Mexico has made a vast effort to bring vaccination rates in line with the United States.

He said high-level bilateral economic meetings taking place in November will focus on the border region. Other meetings will be held in coming days to work out details of the reopening.

Ebrard said Mexico had been strongly pushing Washington for the border to reopen, including laying out proposals during a visit by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.

The United States “have accepted many proposals that we made along the way to achieve this,” Ebrard said, without giving details.

(Reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez; writing by Drazen Jorgic; editing by Frank Jack Daniel)

Mexico seeks reciprocity from U.S. on security, minister says before talks

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico will work during high-level security talks this week to ensure “reciprocity” from the United States on matters such as arms trafficking and extraditions, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Tuesday.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland will be among the delegation of top U.S. officials due to hold meetings in Mexico City on Friday.

Reiterating that it was time to “leave behind” the so-called Merida Initiative, a U.S.-Mexican scheme providing funds for military expenditure, Ebrard said Mexico was ushering in a new “symmetrical and respectful” phase in security cooperation.

Ebrard said Mexico had 10 priorities essentially aimed at reducing violence, and wanted to ensure that there was “reciprocity in controlling arms trafficking, reciprocity in legal assistance, reciprocity in extraditions, and so on”.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has promoted a non-confrontational approach to combating chronic gang violence in Mexico, arguing that economic development is the most effective way of reducing the appeal of organized crime.

(Reporting by Dave Graham; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

U.S. immigration agents to more narrowly target migrants for deportation

By Mica Rosenberg and Kristina Cooke

(Reuters) – The U.S. government will narrow who immigration agents target for arrest and deportation, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Thursday, in a marked departure from the hardline approach taken by then-U.S. President Donald Trump.

New guidance issued on Thursday gives agents more discretion to make case-by-case decisions, Mayorkas said, focusing primarily on those who pose a national security or public safety threats and recent border crossers.

Immigrants who have been in the United States for a lengthy period of time, who are elderly or minors or whose family members might be adversely affected by deportation could be spared enforcement, according to a memo issued Thursday. Other mitigating factors given consideration could be service in the military by the immigrant or an immediate family member or those who have been victims of a crime among other examples, the memo sent to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said. The new guidelines take effect in 60 days.

U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, pledged a more humanitarian approach to immigration than his Republican predecessor Trump. Under Trump, ICE agents were told no immigrant would be exempt from immigration enforcement including low-level offenders and non-criminals, as well as people who have been in the United States for many years.

“It is estimated there are more than 11 million undocumented or otherwise removable non-citizens in the United States,” including teachers, farmworkers and people working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, the memo said. “We do not have the resources to apprehend and seek the removal of every one.”

The new guidelines do not include categories, but rather instruct the agents to look at the totality of circumstances as a way to prioritize resources.

“In the area of public safety, very often guidelines in the past have defined who is a public safety threat by looking at the issue categorically, if you have done X than you are public safety threat,” Mayorkas said. That approach “could lead to ineffective and unjust results,” he said.

Earlier interim guidelines by the Biden administration instructed ICE agents to focus on categories of immigrants deemed security threats and those who entered the United States after Nov. 1, 2020. A federal judge blocked those guidelines in August, siding with two Republican-led states – Texas and Louisiana – that had challenged them.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg and Kristina Cooke; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

U.S., Mexico to discuss border reopening, agree on more vaccines

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Senior U.S. and Mexican officials will meet on Tuesday to discuss plans to reopen their shared border, and Washington has agreed to send Mexico up to 8.5 million more coronavirus vaccine doses, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said.

Ebrard told reporters U.S. Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas and national security adviser Jake Sullivan will meet in Mexico City for talks with their Mexican counterparts as part of a drive to get cross-border activities back to normal.

The meeting comes after Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador spoke to U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday, discussing migration, the fight against COVID-19, and the need to strengthen Central American economies.

During their phone call, the United States agreed to send Mexico 3.5 million doses of drugmaker Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine and up to 5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, Ebrard told a regular morning news conference.

The vaccines would likely arrive in August, he said.

Ebrard added that he did not expect the U.S.-Mexico land border to reopen by Aug. 21, and that more time would be needed to resume transit for so-called nonessential trips, including for those who cross the border to work or attend school.

Speaking at the same news conference, Lopez Obrador added that Harris agreed with him on the need to reopen their shared land border, but did not provide a specific timetable.

Ebrard said Lopez Obrador and Harris had also discussed plans to revive, in early September, a forum for bilateral talks known as the high-level economic dialogue, which is aimed at improving economic integration and boosting growth.

When asked what such discussions could encompass, Ebrard noted that North America was gearing up for technological changes, such as the transition to electric cars, underlining the importance of companies like Tesla Inc in the industry.

“Obviously we’re interested in being a part of that,” he said.

(Reporting by David Alire Garcia and Raul Cortes Fernandez; Editing by Dave Graham and Jonathan Oatis)