MEXICO.- During the most recent North American Leaders Summitthe presidents of Canada, the United States and Mexico hugged, cheered, ate and drank with pleasure but, above all, they made promises for “an orderly and safe migration”.
Justin Tradeau, Joe Biden and Andrés Manuel López Obrador they promised more visas, more order, refuges and asylums; less xenobia and insecurity.
I eat? According to a joint statement, will help emigrate through legal channels, will improve the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, with a binational initiative to improve labor rights, as well as the fight against xenophobia by promoting balanced public narratives.
In the joint statement that the White House rushed to issue, it was also said that a asylum application processing center on the southern border of Mexico, but AMLO denied this point.
How many chances do these pacts have to become reality?
Analysts agree that a part of those promises is rhetoric and another depends on the capacities, limitations and political, economic, legal and social will of each country.
“As the reality is very serious, what they did was pretend there are solutions on the migration issue,” observed Agustín Barrio Gómez, analyst of the binational relationship and member of the Mexican Council of International Affairs.
“The real solutions to stop migration are an economic growth of 5%, not even 10%, and that there were no problems of insecurity, but there is no security and they don’t want to make the necessary reforms for a 5% growth… they didn’t even want to touch the energy problem derived from free trade!”, he added.
From said to fact…
In the meetings that took place between last Monday and Wednesday, the presidents they returned again and again to the immigration issue and the flows without presidents that crosses the continent.
“Is he time to end this oblivionthat abandonment, that disdain for Latin America and the Caribbean,” AMLO told Biden, who responded that the US has given millions in aid in the last 15 years.
“The three of us are good partners,” the American added the next day. “You are the first US president who has not built a single meter of wall and I thank you,” López Obrador retorted.
The messages were also coming and going from other actors such as Francisco Garduño, commissioner of the National Institute of Migration. “They should not confuse the asylum application in Mexico as a safe-conduct to transit freely to the United States.”
Kristina Rosales, spokesperson for the US Department of State, supported the debate with the declaration that her country was committed to integrating Canada into a mechanism that would allow ease the growing flows of migrants seeking to reach the United States through Mexico.
Canada said yes, but in the eyes of observers of the issue, any number of refugees would fall short because there are thousands and thousands of requests while deportations totaled 2.3 million people in the last fiscal year.
For José María Ramos, an analyst at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, although Canada upholds its asylum policies did not promise to increase the numbers and, even if it did, it would always be insufficient.
“The crowds will continue on the borders of Mexico, but they will not collapse because the migrants do not stay, they try again and again. For this reason, people wonder where the 2.3 million who were deported are and are not in El Paso or Tijuana: those who remain there represent just under 5%.”
The researcher remembers that the migration issue has been a recurring story in diplomatic relations of the last two centuries, because it has been convenient for the United States to look one way or the other, to block or allow flexible passage, according to its manpower needs.
All this has encouraged increase in traffickers of undocumented and it has even been an activity in which organized crime found a million-dollar business opportunity.
“As things are Mexico does not have the capacity to stop the Central AmericansIt’s because it doesn’t have a policy, but rather discourages migrants from coming to Mexico because insecurity is hell here and they’ll have such a hard time that it’s not worth taking the risk,” Barrio Gómez highlighted.
What was missing?
López Obrador slipped a claim to request the regularization of Mexicans who for years have served as undocumented workers for American needs. He asked Biden at the Summit to put pressure on the Congress of your countrythough he knows that Republicans have time and again opposed any way that leads to legalization.
The CDMX migrant deputy, Raúl Torres, the only legislator elected due to the exodus, considered that for Mexico the North American Leaders Summit was a fiasco because “it did not achieve anything for the country on the issue and only agreed to receive 30,000 Central Americans, Haitians and Venezuelans monthly, which represents 360,000 a year.
“What would have been done differently?” Torres questioned. “Understanding the demographic bonus that exists in the country, we are younger and we have to talk about student mobility regardless of social class, we would have obtained more visas for them to go study and come to Mexico or why not talk about visas for investors within the framework of free trade!
On the other hand, regarding the issue of work with a temporary visa, human rights defenders have criticized the lack of vigilance to the laws and agreements for legal labor migration which has led to abuses by businessmen in the US and contractors in Mexico, as well as some flaws in the agreement with Canada.
“It would suffice The US monitors that companies comply with the laws”, highlighted the Center for the Rights of Migrants.
For Agustín Barrio Gómez, the positive part is the Recognition of Mexico as a priority actor for the integration of production that could lead to positive employment agreements in the three countries.
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