Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says that he has rejected a Biden administration request to set up migrant processing centers in Mexico, where migrants could apply for U.S. work and refugee visas.
"We have been looking at setting up sites in Mexico, because they [the United States] have asked for it," Lopez Obrador said, according to the Associated Press. "We have not accepted it, first we want to talk to the presidents."
He was referring to the leaders of 11 countries along the migration routes in the Hemisphere — including Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti and Cuba. They will meet later this month. He did not rule out building the centers in the future, but reportedly said that he would prefer to have centers in countries that are the sources of migration. However, Mexico is a key source of migration to the U.S.
The Biden administration announced earlier this year the establishment of migrant processing centers as part of its efforts to expand "lawful migration pathways." It marks a key plank of the administration’s plan to tackle the ongoing border crisis, which the administration has noted is Hemisphere-wide.
