USA to send vaccines to Mexico in exchange for migration control

The President of the United States, Joe Biden (Photo: AP Photo / Andrew Harnik)
With information from Estadão

Joe Biden’s government agreed to supply Mexico with excess doses of the Covid-19 vaccine and the Mexicans decided to help the United States (USA) contain a significant increase in immigration along the border between the two countries, some officials reported to The Washington Post.

The decision to send the vaccine from the AstraZeneca laboratory to Mexico and also to Canada should be announced this Friday, 19, according to the newspaper. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked President Biden to help them make up for the lack of vaccines in their countries in recent talks.

Mexican and USA officials said the deal did not condition the delivery of vaccines to the crackdown on immigrants, but the United States wants help from Mexico to manage a record influx of Central American teenagers and children on the border between the two countries.

PUBLICIDADE

The Mexicans pledged to get more “expelled” Central American families back under a USA emergency order while urging Biden to share the USA vaccine supply.

“Our priority remains to vaccinate the US population, but the reality is that this virus knows no borders, and ensuring that our neighbors can contain it is critical to protecting the health and economic security of Americans and to prevent the spread of Covid -19 worldwide”, said a senior White House official on condition of anonymity.

Biden said on Tuesday, 16, that the government was “talking to several countries” about doses stored in the USA of Astra-Zeneca, developed in England, which was not approved for use on American soil. USA officials said the decision was never to share the vaccine, but rather when it was determined that there was enough to meet American needs first.

The determination was made last week, after FDA approval of a third vaccine, from Johnson & Johnson, in addition to those produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. The USA is well ahead of almost every other country in the total number of deaths from Covid-19 but is now also at the top of the vaccine distribution list.

Biden said last week that all Americans 18 and older would be eligible to receive doses by May 1.

Migration

Calls for more cooperation on migration fit an increasingly well-known pattern in which the United States turns to the Mexican government for help in times of crisis. In recent weeks, Mexico has launched a series of anti-migration operations, mainly along its border with Guatemala.

Mexico’s national guard raided the trains to the north that Central American teenagers use for the border with the United States, prevented migrants with forged documents, and released images of detained migrants.

This type of operation is nothing new, but it has increased in recent weeks as the number of Central American migrants passing through the country has grown. Mexican officials said that their immigration actions are conducted independently of the United States, to apply their own laws that regulate the flow of migrants.

PUBLICIDADE

O que você achou deste conteúdo?

Compartilhe:

Comentários

Os comentários são de responsabilidade exclusiva de seus autores e não representam a opinião deste site. Se achar algo que viole os termos de uso, denuncie. Leia as perguntas mais frequentes para saber o que é impróprio ou ilegal.