Blinken, Mayorkas to travel to Mexico as pressure grows on Biden to act on border

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas will travel to Mexico City on Wednesday to discuss historic levels of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border as pressure ratchets up on the Biden administration to act.

They will be joined by White House homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall and meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The meeting will be focused on “unprecedented irregular migration in the Western Hemisphere and identify ways” each country can address border security challenges, including reopening key ports of entry, the Department of State said in a statement last week.

It will serve as a follow-up to President Biden’s phone call with López Obrador last week, when the two agreed additional enforcement action was urgently needed.

The meeting also comes as attention turns to a caravan reportedly made up of 6,000 migrants that is making its way toward the U.S. and promising to be a political headache for both countries’ leaders. It would be the largest organized group of migrants to form in Tapachula, Mexico, since 2022, when news of a similarly sized caravan threatened to overshadow the Summit of the Americas, hosted in Los Angeles by the Biden administration.

There are an estimated 10,000 people crossing illegally into the U.S. every day. At least three ports of entry in Texas, Arizona and California have closed to foot and vehicle traffic, and two railway crossings have closed.

The surge in migrants at the border has become a major point of political contention, and Republicans are demanding reforms to border policy to unlock aid for Ukraine.

Biden said he is willing to make “significant compromises” on immigration policy to secure an aid deal for Kyiv in its war against Russia.