Joe Biden is in a desperate situation. There are hundreds of thousands of people heading to the U.S. border from Central and South America as well as Europe, Asia, and all points in between.
In the Trump administration, the United States was able to rely on Mexico to help manage the crush of people at the border. First, President Enrique Peña Nieto, and then President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2018, were very cooperative in helping the U.S. stem the tide of illegal immigration.
The reason they were so cooperative was Donald Trump's threat to impose tariffs on Mexican goods, though they certainly didn't agree to Trump's "remain in Mexico" policy that required asylum seekers to stay in Mexico until their case was heard in immigration court out of the goodness of their hearts.
But this is what Joe Biden is expecting. They want Mexico to help Biden make his border problem disappear. And Lopez Obrador has very little goodness in that mercenary little heart of his.
“[President Biden] is definitely hoping that Mexico will do something that pushes the numbers down for a few months at least,” said Adam Isacson, director of defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America.
But Lopez Obrador wants something from Biden in return. The Mexican president sees himself as a savior of Central America and is demanding the U.S., first, establish relations with the Cuban government and, second, radically increase development aid to the countries that are sending all those people northwards. He wants the U.S. to focus on what he sees as "root causes."
“Root causes is a long-term solution, it’s not going to do anything really between now and, say, 2028 at the very earliest. So in the short term, yeah, he’s using deterrence just like everyone else — all these checkpoints, all those National Guard controls,” said Isacson.
Biden can't wait until 2028.
Through the National Guard and controls at its southern border, Mexico has some influence over the volume of migrants reaching the United States, but López Obrador’s sharpest tool is his ability to decide whether or not he’ll take third-country deportees or expellees from the United States, cooperating on policies such as Title 42 and “remain in Mexico.”
In a sign of the kind of deterrence Biden can expect from López Obrador, Mexican immigration officials bulldozed a migrant encampment in Matamoros, a city across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, as Blinken and company met with López Obrador almost 500 miles away in Mexico City.
But Biden is going to have to smile and take whatever he gets. Because Biden doesn't believe in "big stick" diplomacy, Lopez Obrador is going to do the bare minimum at the border and satisfy his own political needs first.
Regardless of what the two countries agree to, the situation will be materially unchanged. As Adam Isaacson points out, there may be temporary improvement in border crossings, but eventually, the smugglers will find other routes and the problem will once again reach a critical mass.
“There’s nothing here that is better policy. It’s going to hurt people. Six to eight months after it happens, it’ll be a wash anyway, as migrants and smugglers find new ways around it,” said Isacson. “All this will do — and you’ve seen this repeatedly — is push the numbers down for a few months. Buy a little breathing space.”
Let's face it. People from all over the world are going leave the dung heaps they live in to do anything to come to America. And they're not going to let a few rules keep them from entering the United States. They will cross the border illegally and hope that the 11 million other illegals already in the U.S. can shelter them and help them until they get on their feet.
They come because they want a better life. I get it. Everyone wants a better life, including Americans and their families. But there are almost a million people around the world who also want to come to America and seek a better life and are doing it by following the rules, not sneaking across the border in the dead of night.
