The expanding network of cross-border ties with Mexico, which includes trade equal to $1m per minute, is being threatened by the absence of any progress being made toward reforming the immigration system in the United States, according to Mexico’s foreign secretary.
Jose Antonio Meade made by the remarks to California Chamber of Commerce members on Wednesday ahead of Jerry Brown, the Democratic governor, arriving in Mexico for a trade mission next week. “We are looking ahead to a time when Mexico and the US will benefit not just from allegiances but from an increased network of cross-border ties between our societies,” Meade noted. “Lack of immigration reform is holding all of these prospects back.”
Meade was speaking against the backdrop of increasing economic relations between Mexico and the United States and the growing tension over the influx of tens of thousands of undocumented immigrant minors entering the United States from Mexico after leaving their homes in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The flow has intensified the debate regarding immigration reform; US authorities have been overwhelmed and are finding it increasingly difficult to find temporary shelter for the young immigrants while they wait for deportation proceedings.
On Tuesday, planning commissioners in the suburb of Escondido in San Diego rejected a proposal to have a temporary shelter for a number of the minors opened in their neighborhood.