President Joe Biden is turning to Canada to help solve the ongoing crisis at the southern border, a State Department spokeswoman said this week.
A potential agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada to increase legal immigration was discussed during trilateral talks between Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) this week, State Department spokeswoman Kristina Rosales told Reuters on Tuesday.
Here’s Kristina Rosales from State noting US interest in having Canada sign a trilateral agreement for processing asylum seekers that would take pressure off the border. I haven’t seen announcements about the program in the press releases after today’s meeting but worth tracking https://t.co/u03YALmTSF pic.twitter.com/JhvwFrIYHk
— Cris Ramón (@CramonMigration) January 11, 2023
AMLO said Tuesday he “celebrated” Biden’s decision to grant humanitarian parole to migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti, thus allowing more individuals from those countries to enter the U.S. legally by air. AMLO also thanked Biden for not following former President Donald Trump’s promise to build a wall at the southern border.
Rosales told Reuters the administration hopes to “broaden the legal channels so that people can apply directly from their cell phones.” (RELATED: American And Canadian Governments Issue Stark Warning After Cartel Violence Traps Tourists In Mexico)
In response to an inquiry from the Daily Caller on how Canada, specifically, could play a role in solving the border crisis, Rosales referred back to the White House fact sheet on the subject, which states that the U.S., Mexico and Canada will all work to increase legal pathways of immigration and share best practices for things like asylum processing. Rosales did not offer any specifics on possible policy changes Canada might make in the immediate future to specifically alleviate the flow of migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border.
A record number of migrants have crossed the southern border under Biden, a trend that hasn’t showed signs of sustained decline anytime recently.