(Headline USA) President Joe Biden will visit Mexico City next month for a meeting with the leaders of Canada and Mexico, but he has no plans to stop by the southern border on his trip as of right now.
White House spokesman John Kirby confirmed that Biden will be in Mexico from Jan. 9-10, his first trip to Latin America as president. He will meet with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Kirby said.
News of the trip comes as the southern border experiences a massive surge of migrants looking to gain entry into the U.S. ahead of the Biden administration’s planned repeal of Title 42, a Trump-era policy that allows border officials to immediately deport any migrant who does not meet asylum requirements.
Lawmakers and immigration officials have urged Biden to take the border crisis seriously, but when asked last month whether he planned to take a trip to the border, Biden said he had “more important things going on.”
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts paused a lower-court order this week to lift Title 42, which the Biden administration hoped to revoke on Wednesday. Nineteen states had sued Biden over the matter, arguing that his reversal of Title 42 would endanger U.S. national security.
“Getting rid of Title 42 will recklessly and needlessly endanger more Americans and migrants by exacerbating the catastrophe that is occurring at our southern border,” the states argued.
Biden’s relationship with the Mexican president has been on shaky ground as well. In June, Obrador snubbed the Biden-hosted 2022 Summit of the Americas and advocated for the reinstatement of former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account.
“I already voted for Trump to be able to use Twitter. The Statue of Liberty must not remain an empty symbol,” Obrador tweeted.
