Biden did NOT discuss migration with the Mexican President during the summit

Joe Biden did not discuss the southern border when he met Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador during their summit in Mexico this week, claiming there was “no time” to discuss the historic crisis.

The southern border issue was removed from the agenda at the Three Amigos Summit Monday and Tuesday in Mexico City, Mexico, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

It appears that because a private conversation between Biden and López Obrador dragged on, the group’s subsequent official meeting left less time than expected to discuss the US-Mexico border issue.

The conversation before the meeting apparently touched on migration and the border, but it’s not clear how detailed they went on the subject.

The official meeting seemed to focus mainly on drug smuggling and supply chain issues.

Sources familiar with President Joe Biden’s official meeting with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador this week say the two leaders and their respective cabinets did not discuss the southern border crisis because they ran out of time be

The trip to Mexico for the Three Amigos Summit followed Biden’s first-ever trip to the southern border after two years of Republican pressure

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has repeatedly criticized Republicans for deepening the southern border crisis.

Biden is “trying to fix the border crisis,” she said when asked about his solutions following his trip to the border on Sunday and subsequent meetings with Canadian and Mexican leaders.

“Migration, irregular migration, that was of course a central topic of discussion,” emphasized Jean-Pierre in her press conference on Wednesday. “President Biden discussed ways our countries can continue to work together and tackle irregular migration. So this conversation certainly happened extensively.

The president’s official meeting with López Obrador, known colloquially as AMLO, was attended by more than two dozen of their key aides, including Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

Representatives, officials and the two world leaders spent much of their meeting at the North American Leaders’ Summit discussing supply chain and drug smuggling issues, officials said.

However, the elephant in the southern border area was not discussed at all due to time constraints.

Most Republicans would argue that the single biggest issue Biden had to raise with AMLO and his cabinet was solutions to quell the massive numbers of migrants flooding the US southern border via Mexico.

Biden met with AMLO (center) and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (right) earlier this week during the North American Leaders Summit in Mexico City, Mexico

Biden insisted he and AMLO discuss the migration during a limousine ride from the airport upon his arrival in Mexico City.

“We’ve spent a lot of time talking about it,” Biden said Tuesday during the press conference concluding this week’s summit in Mexico City.

AMLO also said that the three leaders “have talked about migration in very general terms.”

He also pointed out that there had been friction between leaders over the issue of migration at the southern border that the US shares with Mexico.

“I have asked President Biden to insist before the US Congress to resolve the migratory situation of millions of Mexicans who have worked in the United States, lived in the United States and contributed to the development of this great nation,” said the Mexican President said.

Biden’s private meeting with AMLO came right after his first-ever visit to the southern border as president.

A long line of migrants, mostly from Venezuela and Cuba, are returning to Mexico after being deported from the US under Title 42 on January 9

He went to El Paso, Texas to study the physical border barrier as well as the border community. Several critics claim that Biden was prevented from seeing the full extent of the crisis after delaying the trip for nearly two years because the city was being “sanitized” ahead of the president’s visit.

The president’s visit to the border finally came after Republicans put enormous pressure on the president to crack down on migration as numbers hit new highs and showed no sign of stopping.

Just days before the trip to the border and Mexico City, Biden announced new anti-migration measures, including an agreement with the AMLO government to expand humanitarian probation programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. It would allow these migrants to come to the US directly from their home countries, rather than traveling through Mexico to cross the border illegally.

AMLO praised the announcement at a press conference, calling it a “light in the tunnel”.