With spotlight on border security, Biden administration looks to Guatemala and Mexico for help

U.S., Mexican and Guatemalan officials met Wednesday to address record migration as the Biden administration tries to fix the border issues that have surged to the top of voter concerns.

President Joe Biden has pivoted to tougher rhetoric on border security in a campaign year. But the talks show the administration might be exploring ways to revamp Biden's original plan to address the root causes of migration.

Senior Biden administration officials said the trilateral talks in Washington will focus on the conditions that push people to migrate including poverty, violence and official graft. The talks also represent a reset with Guatemala after the country elected a new president seen as a rare trustworthy ally in a region rife with corruption.

The U.S. badly needs Mexico and Guatemala on board in any strategy to slow the flow of migrants to the border. Both countries are top senders of migrants to the U.S., and both have also faced enormous pressure by the U.S. to enforce their own borders.

The talks – a day before Biden makes a security-focused visit to the Texas-Mexico border – comes at a time in which the three-way relationship is complicated, at best.

Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador questioned his ability to trust the U.S. after The New York Times reported last week that U.S. law enforcement spent years investigating allegations that his allies met with and took millions of dollars from drug cartels. López Obrador, whose six-year term ends this year, has vehemently denied any links to Mexico's criminal underworld.

“Does this diminish the trust the Mexican government has in the United States?” López Obrador said during a Feb. 22 news conference. "Only time will tell."

In Guatemala, the U.S. is resetting a difficult relationship. Last year's presidential contest became a battle for the country's young democracy. Anti-corruption candidate Bernardo Arévalo, who promised to work with the United States, won a runoff election in August. He took office six weeks ago.

“The first thing that will happen is that actually the United States will find a partner that is rooting out corruption and will have all intention of actually working toward development,” Arévalo told USA TODAY in an exclusive interview during his campaign.

But Mexico and Guatemala, which share a border, face their own trust issues. Under U.S. pressure to round up migrants inside its territory, Mexican immigration enforcement took a deadly turn last year when a fire inside a migrant detention center killed 40 men, including 19 Guatemalans.

More: A Joe Biden photo op at the border? Here's what mayors and governors say they really want.

'A future in their country'

The Biden administration announced its "root causes" strategy in 2021 as a cornerstone of its immigration policy. But the project has faced criticism as a long-term solution to the pressing problem of migrant humanitarian crises at the border.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported nearly 7 million migrant encounters at the Southwest border in the past three fiscal years since the strategy was announced.

Last fiscal year, CBP recorded 2.5 million encounters at the border – the highest 12-month total ever. Nearly 938,000, or 38%, of the encounters were with Mexican and Guatemalan nationals.

"The root causes strategy needs to not just address extreme poverty but it also needs to foster hope," said Anita Isaacs, a Guatemala expert and professor of social sciences at Haverford College. "The people who migrate are the most ambitious, generally. It’s those people who need to see they have a future in their country."

The three countries will create a joint "operational cell" to tackle migration through regional border enforcement and security and economic initiatives, senior administration officials said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will host with their counterparts, Mexico foreign minister Alicia Bárcena as well as Guatemala interior minister Francisco Jiménez Irungaray and foreign minister Carlos Ramiro Martínez.

Earlier this week, Bárcena said Mexico is providing $117 million in foreign aid to countries that are among the main senders of migrants through Mexico to the U.S. border, including Cuba, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti and Panama. The country's own strategy is to address "structural causes" such as poverty and violence.

During a partial livestream of the trilateral meeting, Bárcena said she expected the talks to lead to a “unique model for migration” that “transcends unilateral” approaches.

The trilateral talks will focus on "creating good jobs, promoting democratic governance, protecting human rights and improving security to help people in our hemisphere build better lives at home," a senior Biden administration official said.

This story will be updated.

Lauren Villagran covers immigration for USA TODAY. She can be reached at [email protected]

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Immigration surge subject of talks as US hosts Mexico, Guatemala