Tenosique, Tabasco — The United States Ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, has visited the Tabasco border with Guatemala where a majority of Mexico’s migratory issues have been recorded in recent weeks.
Over the weekend, the newly arrived US Ambassador also held meetings with the state’s interim governor Manuel Merino as well as with authorities from the National Migration Institute (INM) and other federal agencies.
Salazar spent the weekend touring the border in an attempt to see first-hand the situation regarding the flow of migrants that have been entering Mexico illegally to reach the US.
In a statement, INM announced the trip and noted that Joe Biden’s government representative exchanged comments on migration and learned about “the care processes in favor of people in the context of mobility.”
Salazar visited, together with personnel from the INM and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), some areas of the El Ceibo border point in the municipality of Tenosique where he toured the Institute’s facilities and, “also recognized the work carried out by the agents federal immigration authorities and the government agencies with which they coordinate to maintain safe, orderly and regular migration.”
The Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM) says that they are acting in accordance with the law “for the safeguarding and respect of human rights, as well as in the combined efforts with national and international institutions in favor of people in the context of mobility.”
Salzar has also met with the interim governor of Tabasco, Manuel Merino, who took office on August 26, after former governor Adán Augusto López Hernández was appointed by President López Obrador as federal secretary of the government.
Salazar, who was sworn in on September 2 in front of Vice President Kamala Harris, arrived in Mexican territory on September 11. Since arriving, he has also held a brief meeting with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the National Palace in which the Mexican president urged the representative of President Joe Biden to make the investment to address the causes of migration.
The National Institute of Migration (INM) of the Ministry of the Interior says between January1 and August 31 of this year, they have identified 147,033 migrants who were transiting in an irregular condition through Mexico, a figure that is three times what was registered during the same period of 2020.
By the end of August last year, INM says the number of foreigners identified for their irregular stay in Mexico amounted to 48,398.