US calls on Mexico to allow entry of DEA agents

The New U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken SalazarWashington said on Saturday that called on the Mexican government to allow its agents, including the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), operate in Mexico.

Last year, Mexico suspended criminal immunity for foreign agents and imposed strict limits to their contacts with their Mexican counterparts. Analysts say this inevitably affects the DEA’s ability to gather intelligence on drug cartels in the country.

Given that some DEA agents have already visited Mexico, it appears that the US request is aimed at allowing more agents to enter or allowing those already in Mexico to operate more freely.

The United States has been inundated with fentanyl, which is produced primarily in Mexico using chemicals from China as a precursor. Salazar said Mexico is committed to fighting drug cartels under the new bilateral security deal, the Bicentennial Accord announced on Friday to replace the Merida Initiative.

“We will benefit from the cooperation of the Mexican government, which was agreed yesterday, to ensure that the public order and security resources available to us here in collaboration with the Mexican authorities have the capacity to do so,” said yesterday Salazar in his first press conference since arriving in the Mexican capital in September.

“So, yes, that includes our request, and we are working with the Mexican government to have the ability to bring back agents, including the DEA, but we are doing it in a way that we are in partnership with Mexico.” , detailed Salazar.

Salazar also spoke of the need for a “regional response” to another major US concern: the tens of thousands of migrants – many of them Haitians – who are in Mexico or on their way to Mexico from America. from South.

Last month, thousands of Haitian migrants crossed the Rio Grande and set up camp under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas.

“This is a very important issue for both countries, it is very important for the Western Hemisphere,” said Salazar. “Secretary (Antony) Blinken is very committed to working towards a regional solution, and it should be led by both the United States and Mexico.”

He apparently referred to the fact that many Haitian migrants already had asylum or refugee status in countries like Brazil or Chile before embarking on their trip to the United States this summer.

Mexico, for its part, has started sending Haitians to their country on repatriation flights to Port-au-Prince.

Salazar described the new framework of the Bicentennial Accord as “a milestone” and noted that it marks “a new era of partnership”.

The Merida Initiative, in its early days, focused primarily on US donations of police equipment, including airplanes. The Bicentennial Agreement should give higher priority to economic development.

The name refers to the 200th anniversary of Mexican independence and diplomatic relations with the United States.

On the other hand, following the High Level Dialogue on Security in which Mexico and the United States met, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken affirmed that migration cooperation with Mexico “had never been so strong” amid the historic wave of migration in the region and criticism from both governments for the treatment of migrants.

“The collaboration we have to tackle this incredibly difficult issue together, I believe, has never been as strong as it is now,” Blinken said at a press conference with the Foreign Minister of Mexico, Marcelo Ebrard.

Blinken said this after the meeting in which Mexico and the United States also announced the replacement of the Merida Initiative, a 2008 security strategy based on a military approach, with the Bicentennial Accord, with a more global vision.

The meeting took place against a backdrop where tens of thousands of Haitians are stranded at Mexico’s borders and in shelters in various parts of the country, and the United States seeks to reinstate the Migrant Protection Protocol ( MPP), known as “Stay in Mexico” or “Stay in Mexico”.

Ebrard and Blinken denied discussing at the meeting the MPP, which requires claimants to process their asylum claims to the United States from Mexican territory, or Title 42, which allows for the immediate deportation of migrants from states. -United on the basis of the health crisis.

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