In mid-March, Reuters reported that Mexico would “restrict movement on its southern border with Guatemala to help contain the spread of COVID-19”. The same article noted that the Joe Biden administration in the United States would be simultaneously sorting the details of a plan to loan Mexico coronavirus vaccines.
According to White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, the simultaneity had nothing to do with a quid pro quo to stanch so-called “illegal immigration” and was instead the result of “multiple layers” of conversations between the US and Mexico.
But there is no time like a pandemic to intensify the crackdown on poor, US-bound migrants. I have been in Mexico since the onset of the health crisis last year, and no effort has been made to “restrict movement” of incoming tourists and other humans of superior value who have arrived by plane – many of them from coronavirus hotspots such as the US itself.
Quid pro quo or not, Mexico’s southern border reinforcement apparently did not provide the gringos with sufficient immunity from the migrant threat. On April 12, the Associated Press remarked that the month of March had seen a “record number of unaccompanied children” endeavouring to cross into the US, as well as the highest number of Border Patrol “encounters” with migrants on the US-Mexico border since March of 2001. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH.