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The president of Mexico is pushing back on reports that President Joe Biden is preparing to construct miles of new wall along the border of both countries amid record illegal immigration and drug smuggling.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday he doubted that Biden was serious after his American counterpart told reporters he had no choice but to do so to remain in compliance with a congressional spending bill from the Trump era.
“It’s pure publicity,” Lopez Obrador said in a regular morning press conference after the Biden administration announced it would build additional sections of border wall, carrying forward a signature policy of the Trump administration, Reuters reported.
AMLO’s remarks came after a “high-ranking delegation of U.S. officials met Thursday with their Mexican counterparts, among them U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken,” Reuters said.
“They don’t want to (build more sections of the wall), that’s what they told us,” Lopez Obrador noted.
Biden earlier said the funds were appropriated by Congress and as such he could not, by law or the Constitution, redirect them elsewhere.
AMLO added that in talks held the previous day, the Mexican delegation told the U.S. officials his country “does not believe (additional border wall construction) to be the answer to the migration problem.”
“We’ve always spoken about tending to the root causes,” Lopez Obrador said.
On Friday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had difficulty answering NBC White House reporter Peter Alexander’s line of questions when he pressed her after the Department of Homeland Security said that new “barriers” were needed along the southwestern border — a “wall,” according to some — as President Biden himself said “walls don’t work.”
Biden had previously told reporters that despite his personal beliefs, he nevertheless “defended his administration’s decision to waive 26 federal laws in South Texas to allow for construction of roughly 20 miles of additional border wall, saying he had no choice but to use the Trump-era funding for the barrier to stop illegal migration from Mexico,” the Associated Press reported.
“So, who is right? The statement from the DHS secretary overnight or the president’s commentary this morning saying they don’t work?” Alexander asked.
“Well, we believe — so, first of all, he was asked, ‘Do you believe…’ — let me get the exact — ‘Do you believe…’ — by your colleague Selina here — ‘Do you believe the border wall works?’ He said, ‘No.’ Right? He answered that directly,” Jean-Pierre began.
“So, we believe there are more effective ways of dealing with this — dealing with the border security. And so, of course, we have repeatedly asked Congress to make sure that CBP have the resources they need to do their jobs. And we think there are other ways to do that, whether it’s smarter, more effective border security measures — and so — you know, like tech- — border — border technology. We believe that works when you modernize that,” she continued.
“And also, land ports — land ports of entry. We believe that’s what works to deal with border security,” the spokeswoman added.
“And so, we’ve been very clear. The President has very clear about this. He doesn’t believe — believe the border wall is effective, and that has not changed. That has not changed,” she said.
“We are complying by the law. DHS is complying by the law that — that — that — an appropriation that came from fiscal year 2019, under the last administration — Republican leadership — and that’s what you’re seeing now,” she added.
Later, she said: “Since May, we have returned — we have returned — or, sent away or sent back more than 300,000 migrants who came here undocumented. And so, that is — shows that — our commitment to the border and that shows a commitment in making sure that we tried to work in a system that is broken.”
