Irregular migration on the border with the US fell by 76%: De la Fuente

Arturo Sánchez Jiménez and Emir Olivares

La Jornada Newspaper
Saturday, November 9, 2024, p. 3

The flows of irregular migrants on the border between Mexico and the United States have been reduced to date by 76 percent compared to the historical maximum recorded in December 2023, Foreign Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente reported yesterday.

The official presented at the daily press conference of President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo an assessment of the immigration situation in Mexico and highlighted the work of the intersecretarial commission of the federal government and the humanitarian model of mobility, established in the mandate of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and which, he maintained, have operated successfully since the beginning of the current administration.

He stated that on December 18, 2023, 12,498 encounters by the US authorities with irregular migrants on the border were recorded, and that this figure has been decreasing since then to reach 3,002 encounters on November 5, which which means a reduction of 76 percent, according to figures from the United States Customs and Border Protection.

This data is really very important, because what it shows is that the model that Mexico proposed has many elements that now is not the time to discuss, but the model is working and we want it to continue working.held.

President Sheinbaum stated that the essence of the decrease in migration has to do with attention to the causes and pointed out that for this reason the strengthening of the Mexican government’s strategy to promote the development of the country’s southern border will continue.

Therefore, expanding this project has to do with the development of this border, based on various public investment incentives and also the attraction of private investment, in such a way that if a migrant arrives in this area, they also have the opportunity to employmenthe added.

De la Fuente explained that the Mexican government maintains coordination with other countries in the region to address migratory flows, but rejected that this has to do with Donald Trump’s victory in the recent elections in the United States.

This coordination will continue and, of course, we also hope that the, let’s say, geopolitical position of Mexico will give us the natural opportunity to continue maintaining leadership in the Latin American region, of coordination, on the same terms that we want to maintain the interrelation with America. of the North and with the market to which we belong. So there is coordination, but not specifically in reaction to some electoral eventhe declared.