U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in Mexico on Sunday evening for his first official visit to the country after nearly two years in office, to attend a summit of North American leaders. Biden is scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday, ahead of the North American leaders' summit on Tuesday in Mexico City.
Among the topics Biden will discuss with his Mexican counterpart is the tragic issue of synthetic fentanyl, which is fifty times stronger than heroin and is produced by Mexican cartels using chemical components imported from China, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Earlier on Sunday, Biden visited the U.S.-Mexico border for the first time since taking office, stopping in El Paso, Texas, a focal point in the debate over illegal immigration and drug trafficking into the United States. Republicans accuse Biden of overlooking the unprecedented influx of migrants trying to cross into the U.S. illegally via Mexico.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, greeted Biden there and has accused the Democratic president of turning the border into a corridor for immigration. Late Saturday, the president tweeted about his trip, emphasizing "the need to expand legal pathways for organized migration." He stated, "We can do all of this while also reducing illegal immigration."
Accompanying President Biden to the Mexican border was U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, who called for a "regional solution" to the immigration crisis in an interview with ABC on Sunday. Earlier, the White House announced measures to try to alleviate the burden at the border, where more than 230,000 people were recorded as apprehended in a single month. Up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela will be allowed to enter the United States monthly, provided they arrive by air to avoid overburdening border patrol on the ground.
