Mexican president to discuss migrant crisis with Biden
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tuesday he would meet his US counterpart Joe Biden on July 12 in Washington, with migration high on the agenda after another people-smuggling tragedy.
Lopez Obrador said at least 22 Mexicans were among the 50 people who died in and around a trailer truck found abandoned Monday in sweltering heat in the US state of Texas.
He said migration was a "central" issue that he would discuss with Biden, describing the disaster -- one of the worst of its kind in the United States in recent years -- as a "tremendous misfortune."
Lopez Obrador called for steps to regularise the status of migrants and for agreements with the United States and Canada on temporary work visas.
Mexico's president refused to join Biden and other regional leaders at the Summit of the Americas earlier in June in Los Angeles because the United States did not invite the governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Despite the snub, Lopez Obrador said he had "good" relations with Biden and was optimistic that the upcoming two-way talks would yield positive results.
Since 2014, some 6,430 migrants have died on the move through the Americas, of which 1,248 died in 2021 alone, which keeps a count based on data provided by Mexican immigration authorities, as well as from medical authorities, coroners and police in US border states.
