Biden, López Obrador to talk fentanyl, migrants on Tuesday

President Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will discuss border issues, including migration and fentanyl trafficking, on a call Tuesday.

López Obrador announced the call in his daily press conference Monday, saying the two leaders also will discuss cross-border economic cooperation.

“Nine-thirty in the morning. We had been looking to connect, but the possibility had not come up because we were traveling. We will continue talking about the cooperation we have, which is very, very good and which we will maintain,” he said.

Both countries’ security officials are bracing for the unpredictable effects on migration of the end of Title 42, a pandemic-era border management policy that will sunset Thursday.

Mexico last week agreed to continue receiving some non-Mexican migrants from the United States after the end of Title 42.

López Obrador last week called on migrants not to be deceived by human smugglers, shopping the policy change as a softening of U.S. border controls.

His foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said last week that smugglers are “deceiving” migrants and that migration flows through Mexico have increased as a result.

Biden administration officials have been fighting an uphill battle to counter disinformation around the end of Title 42, especially as the policy’s end has become politicized.

Republicans have warned of a doomsday scenario with the end of the policy, with many Democrats and administration officials following suit.

Immigrant advocates have warned that spreading panic about the end of Title 42 falsely portrays migrants as a national security threat, potentially leading to violent consequences.

With the end of pandemic emergency measures, border officials will still detain migrants they encounter crossing the border illegally, but they will have to screen them for asylum claims and file paperwork on each encounter.

Under Title 42, border officials could summarily expel most migrants back to Mexico and were not required to register an official record of each encounter.

Border experts expect that misinformation about the end of Title 42, coupled with an asylum bottleneck created by the policy, likely will significantly increase migrant encounters at the border in the coming months.

The end of Title 42 is also likely to reduce the number of Mexican nationals attempting to cross into the United States illegally because they now will face criminal charges for repeat border apprehensions.