Arturo Sanchez Jimenez and Emir Olivares
Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday, October 15, 2022, p. 4
The priorities for next year in security cooperation with the United States are to reduce arms trafficking to Mexico and, on this side, the control of the production and transfer of fentanyl and other chemical precursors, according to the minister. of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SEP), Marcelo Ebrard.
After the second edition of the High-Level Dialogue on Security between Mexico and the United States, held on Thursday in Washington, Ebrard yesterday presented a balance of the results of the meeting at the morning conference of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, adding that the government from Mexico go with sympathy
the measures announced this week by the Joe Biden government to expand the number of work visas for migrants to 65,000 and 24,000 humanitarian permits for Venezuelan migrants.
Ebrard and the members of the security cabinet met with the Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken; that of National Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, and the attorney general of that country, Merrick Garland, to review the progress of the Bicentennial Understanding, an agreement adopted a year ago by the administrations of Joe Biden and López Obrador.
After pointing out that 32,000 illegal weapons have been confiscated in Mexico in the last year, Ebrard reported that he proposed to the United States 20 measures to increase the confiscation of weapons and further reduce their illegal trafficking, and that the creation of a working group was agreed binational for that purpose.
He affirmed that the Bicentennial Understanding it’s working and it’s helping us reduce violence and the most serious crimes
in Mexico, and that this has been reflected in the 9.2 percent drop in the number of homicides up to September.
He added that Mexico and the United States will soon launch a campaign so that drug use does not spread, especially fentanyl
.
It was also agreed that there will be investments to expand Mexico’s capacities in the investigation of disappearances. On this subject, he narrated that the US authorities were surprised to learn that at the beginning of the six-year term there were 104,000 missing persons in Mexico.
For Blinken, who is a very sensitive man on the issue of human rights, was incredible. How that 104 thousand?, he told me
Ebrard commented.
They were not clear about the dimension of the disappearances during the period, especially of former President Felipe Calderón, whose head of the Secretary of Security (Genaro García Luna) is subject to prosecution in New York.
indicated the chancellor.
Regarding visas for Venezuelans, Ebrard considered that although it is a White House decision, it goes in the direction of what the Mexican president has proposed to his US counterpart in various remote or personal meetings they have held.
We have proposed to the United States that if there is a regular way to migrate, in the first place we are going to take away from people all the risk and everything that these movements imply; and on the other, privilege the regular route, instead of favoring the irregular ones, which are very risky.
He said that in Mexico there is an important Venezuelan community: 155 thousand 132 in total. Of these, as of yesterday, 77,228 have residence and 77,704 have been admitted for humanitarian reasons between January and October 2022.
