MEXICO CITY – Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador became an unlikely ally of former US President Donald Trump’s migration policies, deploying thousands of soldiers across Mexico to stop Central American asylum seekers heading for the border from 2000 miles.
Now President Biden is preparing to undo much of Mr Trump’s immigration legacy, while also facing disagreements with the Mexican populist on a range of other bilateral issues, such as security cooperation and climate change.
Collaboration with the Mexican president, despite those differences, will be crucial to managing the immigration issue, political and policy analysts say. Mr Biden has pledged an immigration review to provide a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented migrants, nearly half of them Mexicans.
He also wants to end the asylum eligibility restrictions put in place during Mr Trump’s years and end a program that would require about 70,000 asylum seekers in Mexico to wait while their proceedings are being tried in the US.
The policy change, which the government says will result in a more humane migration system, has a potential downside: if done too hastily, it could lead to an increase in the numbers of migrants, which analysts say could be politically disastrous for Mr Biden.