Enrique Pena Nieto, the Mexican President-Elect, has backed the push towards US immigration reform being planned by President Barack Obama and has pledged to give his full cooperation and support with regards to border security as well as vowing to increase efforts to put a lid on the violence in his own nation.
Three weeks after being re-elected as President of the United States, Obama held talks at the White House with Pena Nieto, who is set to take office this weekend, in order to start forging a personal bond and to discuss the shared challenges they are facing that have sometimes caused fraught relations between the US and Mexico.
Pena Nieto made it clear that Mexicans are very interested in Obama’s intention to try and fix one of the United States’ biggest domestic problems – its America immigration system. The top crossing point for undocumented immigrants entering the United States is the Mexican-US border, which is almost 2,000 miles wide. Having been emboldened by the strong support he received from Hispanic voters in the recent US election, Obama says that he intends to move fast in his second term in order to achieve an overhaul of the immigration system.
“We fully support your proposals,” Pena Nieto told journalists. “We want to contribute, we want to participate… in the betterment and the well-being of so many millions of people who live in your country.” Obama says that Pena Nieto put forth a “very ambitious reform agenda.”