In consecutive visits this month, Vice President Kamala Harris and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have conveyed to the most important U.S. partner that the Biden administration is taking a more nuanced approach to immigration than its predecessor, but still asking what more Mexico can do.
Mayorkas said Tuesday at the conclusion of two days of high-level meetings: “We have challenged one another with respect to what more can each of us do to address the level of irregular migration that has persisted for several months.” In May, encounters with migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border inched up from April to more than 180,000, more than double the number in January, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Record arrivals of migrant children have been especially challenging for the Biden administration, as they were for his predecessors, with the U.S. government picking up nearly 60,000 children traveling without their parents across the Mexican border from February to May. When then President Donald Trump threatened damaging tariffs on all Mexican imports unless Mexico did more to stem the flow of migrants in 2019, Mexico deployed its newly created National Guard to boost enforcement efforts.
