Mexican president to hold call with Biden on immigration

US President Joe Biden (L) is welcomed by his Mexican counterpart Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador upon landing at Felipe Angeles International Airport in Zumpango de Ocampo, north of Mexico City. Pic/AFP

Mexico's president said on Monday he will talk with US President Joe Biden by telephone on Tuesday about immigration and the fentanyl crisis. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the leaders will also discuss development programmes to help stem the flow of migrants to the US border.

The conversation comes two days before the end of pandemic-era immigration restrictions that allowed US authorities to quickly expel migrants who crossed the border illegally. Lopez Obrador appealed to migrants not to use smugglers to travel to the US border. "Don't allow yourselves to be fooled," Lopez Obrador said during his morning news briefing. "Don't allow yourselves to be blackmailed by coyotes, smugglers, who put you at risk."

Mexico agreed last week to continue to accept migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua who are turned away at the border, as well as some other migrants from Central America. The Mexican president has previously asked the US government to contribute more development aid to Central America so people won't have to migrate. Lopez Obrador has also slammed proposals by US Republican legislators to make it more difficult to apply for asylum and easier for authorities to block migrants at the border. "This really degrades them, morally," he said.

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The two presidents will also discuss the fentanyl crisis. The synthetic opioid, mainly smuggled in from Mexico, has caused about 70,000 overdose deaths per year in the United States. Lopez Obrador has denied that drug cartels make fentanyl in Mexico, although he has acknowledged that precursor chemicals " and, he claims, finished fentanyl " are smuggled into Mexico from China, a claim China has denied.

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