Kamala skips border crisis meeting with Mexican president

Border czar Kamala Harris skipped a high-level meeting with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador Friday which was intended to discuss the migrant crisis at the US’s southern border — to visit a daycare center in New Jersey instead. 

The vice president, who was put in charge of tackling the border crisis by Joe Biden back in March, delegated the thorny meeting in Mexico’s capital to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Blinken was joined by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and US Attorney General Merrick Garland and US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar in efforts to mend America’s fractious ties with Mexico.  

As officials from the two nations worked hashed out a new security cooperation accord and deal with a surge in migration across the border, Harris was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, Harris spent the day in New Jersey where she played bingo with kids at a daycare center, stopped by a vaccination site and even had time to sample some cake at a Newark bakery.

The vice president has repeatedly come under fire from Republicans over her handling of the migrant crisis, ever since she was tapped by Biden as America’s border czar.

Harris was especially slammed for her failure to visit the border to see the state of affairs for herself. 

She finally bowed to pressure and visited the border at El Paso, Texas, in June.It is the only time she’s been to the border since taking office. 

On her New Jersey day trip, Harris visited the Ben Samuels Child Care Center at Montclair State University in Little Falls where she met with students and teachers. 

The vice president, who was joined by Governor Phil Murphy and Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, stopped by several classrooms to meet kids and joined in with a game of shapes bingo.

She then joined a group of educators for a roundtable about the importance of supporting working parents.

Harris then headed to a COVID-19 vaccination site at Essex County Community College in Newark to thank healthcare workers and encourage people to get the shot. 

The vice president appeared to have worked up an appetite as she then stopped by cake shop Tonnie’s Minis where she was joined by Senator Cory Booker.

Harris bought red velvet cupcakes and slices of carrot, pineapple coconut and chocolate-covered sponge cake.

Meanwhile, Blinken was taken on a mural tour of the National Palace by Lopez Obrador before the two delegations had a working breakfast.

They were joined at the crisis meeting by Garland, Salazar, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and Secretary of Public Security and Citizen Protection of Mexico Rosa Icela Rodriguez.

Blinken said Lopez Obrador’s earlier comments were ‘exactly in line’ with what Biden has in mind for the US-Mexico relationship.

‘I’m very inspired by the vision you expressed.The work now we have to do to translate that into reality, into truly a transformational partnership, a shared responsibility,’ Blinken said at the start of the breakfast meeting.

Mayorkas tweeted that the meeting represented an ‘important new phase’ in the partnership between the nations.

‘Today’s High-Level Security Dialogue marks an important new phase in the US-Mexico security partnership,’ Mayorkas tweeted. 

‘We will work together under a new framework to guide our joint efforts, and work toward our shared goals of security and prosperity for our two nations’.  

Blinken’s visit is part of the Biden administration’s first US-Mexico High-Level Security Dialogue, in which the two countries will negotiate a sweeping new agreement on how to tackle everything from drug flows to the United States to the smuggling of US-made guns into Mexico.

It comes at a time when the Biden administration is increasingly reliant on its southern neighbor to stem the flow of Latin American migrants heading to the United States.  

US-Mexico relations suffered a major blow last October when US anti-narcotics agents arrested Mexican former defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos, outraging the Mexican government. 

Cienfuegos was freed, but the detention strained relations and hurt security cooperation.

US officials are touting the new security accord as broader than the previous agreement, the Merida Initiative, under which the US channeled about $3.3 billion to help Mexico fight crime.

Launched in 2007, the Merida Initiative initially provided military equipment for Mexican forces and later helped train Mexico’s security forces and the judiciary. 

But Lopez Obrador has been a vocal critic of the program, saying it was tainted by its association with previous governments and for financing security equipment in the 2000s.

Mexican officials say the new agreement will likely focus on the exchange of information, the root causes of violence, and stemming the flow of US-made guns to Mexico, a key point of concern for Lopez Obrador.

But negotiating a new agreement will be painful. 

The US wants a more muscular approach to battling drug cartels while Lopez Obrador prefers softer and less confrontational methods to fighting gangs, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a security and foreign policy analyst.

‘There is a minimal area of overlap,’ said Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. 

‘The US is in an awkward position here because the Lopez Obrador administration is very comfortable with ending security cooperation.’

What is more, the talks about the new security cooperation may be overshadowed by immigration concerns.

A surge in the number of Haitian and Latin American migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border plunged the Biden administration into another crisis last month and underlined Washington’s reliance on Mexico to help stem the flow. 

Nearly 28,000 Haitian migrants were encountered by Border Patrol agents along the US-Mexico border in Fiscal Year 2021, which ended September 30. In 2020, the number was 4,395. 

Last month around 15,000 mostly Haitian migrants camped near a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, prompting a humanitarian outcry against the Biden administration. 

Earlier this week the Washington Examiner reported that border officials are bracing for an incoming surge of as many as 60,000 Haitian migrants.  

Mexico’s importance in managing immigration has given the Lopez Obrador administration leverage to pursue more independent policies in other areas, Mexican officials say privately.

During the US presidential transition early this year, Mexico made it tougher for American law enforcement agents to operate in the country. 

Mexico has also delayed visas for US anti-narcotics officers, the US media has reported.

A senior Mexican security official said there was optimism about the new agreement on the Mexican side and there may be scope to review the restrictions imposed on U.S.agents operating on Mexican soil, but the conditions cannot return to how they were before Cienfuegos’ arrest.

‘I think part of the US government knows that that’s not possible,’ the Mexican official said.