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00:00 I'm joined by Dr. William Booth, he's a lecturer in Latin American history.
00:05 Dr. Booth, thank you for coming.
00:08 So Anthony Blinken's visit to Mexico is to try to find solutions against emigration.
00:13 So can you remind us please what's at stake?
00:17 Well for Blinken and for the AMLO government in Mexico, this is about a lot more the migration.
00:23 Both sides are looking to gain something out of this, which is not simply about the flow
00:28 of migrants.
00:30 Part of the problem is that the US border has been closed at various points.
00:36 It's also the fact that, as your report mentioned, this is a huge issue in the upcoming election.
00:43 But on the Mexican side it's important as well.
00:46 Mexico introduced a new transit visa scheme, which has been very problematic and has meant
00:50 that lots of people who have come to Mexico with the intention of traveling through Mexico
00:55 to the United States haven't been given that paperwork.
00:58 And when they get to the border there are still these terrible conditions for people
01:01 who are being held there under the agreement that AMLO made with Trump.
01:07 So what demands might the US make of Mexico?
01:13 Well I'm sure they're going to demand a lot.
01:15 They think they're trying to make this out as Mexico's problem.
01:17 But of course there's two important reasons why it isn't really Mexico's problem.
01:21 One of which is that most of these migrants are not Mexican.
01:23 They're coming from Central America, from Cuba, from Venezuela, from Haiti and elsewhere.
01:29 And the other problem is most of them are not trying to get to Mexico.
01:31 They're trying to get to the United States.
01:34 What the US wants to do is make this Mexico's problem and keep people in Mexico.
01:39 And actually one of the reasons why there's so many people there on the border is that
01:42 they're doing that.
01:43 They've closed these crossings.
01:45 But there's also another faction in the US government who are seeing this as a security
01:49 issue, having so many people along the border.
01:53 And this is why Blinken was accompanied by top officials from the Department of Homeland
01:56 Security.
01:57 It's not just about migration.
01:59 It's being framed as a security issue too.
02:02 But Mexico has demands too.
02:04 Mexico is in a stronger position to talk about this than it was a couple of years ago.
02:08 They want to push the US to open talks with Cuba, to open talks with Venezuela and to
02:12 start directing resources to the countries of origin in a hope that this will stop this
02:17 enormous transmigration of people through Mexico, as illustrated in these large scale
02:22 migrant caravans.
02:24 And so how is the US dealing now with this influx of migrants, which I remember has doubled
02:30 actually since the pandemic?
02:32 Well, almost all of them are just being arrested and then turned away or kept in detention
02:39 near the border.
02:41 There's not much so-called legal migration going on across the border at the moment.
02:46 So the US has really slowed down that possibility.
02:50 Mexico has also slowed down the possibility of moving through the country.
02:52 So there are just vast numbers of people who are being kind of held in stasis between countries
02:58 of origin and their ultimate destination.
03:00 The US hasn't really addressed the fundamental issue here, which is why are so many people
03:05 trying to get to the United States?
03:06 It's not just about the fact that it's a rich country.
03:09 It's because the US is involved in a lot of destabilizing policies in their countries
03:12 of origin.
03:13 those things need to be linked up for there to be any kind of long-term solution to this.