Today, Sunday, President Joe Biden begins his first official visit to Mexico, during which he will discuss record immigration and overdoses of fentanyl, which is recorded in the thousands in the United States, an industrial drug promoted by Mexican drug cartels.

The US President begins his visit to Mexico, at a station in the city of El Paso, south of Texas, to silence his opponents' concerns about him not visiting the common border between the two countries, which extends over 3,100 km, since he assumed the presidency two years ago.

Tomorrow, Biden will head to Mexico City to meet his Mexican counterpart, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, with whom he will participate on Tuesday in a tripartite summit, along with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Michael Schefter, director of the Institute for Inter-American Dialogue, said Mexico is very suitable for discussing these two acute problems, which "have become Biden's political weaknesses."

And with about 2.3 million arrests and expulsions of illegal immigrants in 2022, Biden should take a firm stance in this regard if he decides to run for a second term.

Biden announced a program that allows 30,000 citizens of other countries to enter the United States legally per month (Reuters)

New program

Before heading to El Paso, Biden had previously announced a program that would allow a maximum of 30,000 people, from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, to enter the United States legally every month.

This quota applies to legally entering workers who have a sponsor in the US, while those who attempt to enter illegally still face possible expulsion.

And with more than 230,000 people arrested at the border who were trying to enter the United States illegally in November, a record level, Biden realizes the limits of this program and takes the Republicans to block a more ambitious plan in this regard.

The bilateral meeting will be overshadowed by the tragedy of the industrial drug fentanyl, which is 50 times stronger than heroin, and is supervised by Mexican cartels with chemical components imported from China, according to the US Drug Enforcement Agency.

Two-thirds of the 108,000 overdose deaths in the United States in 2021 were due to synthetic opioids.

As for the quantities of fentanyl seized in 2022 alone, they exceed the amount necessary to kill the entire American people, according to the US Drug Enforcement Agency.

Migrants cross the Rio Bravo River in Mexico to seek refuge in the United States (Reuters)

drug war

US State Department official for Latin America Brian Nichols said the United States seeks to "expand information sharing" with Mexico on chemical compounds and "enhance prevention."

For its part, Mexico, before Biden's visit, arrested Ovidio Guzman, a major methamphetamine dealer, Thursday, during an operation that resulted in 10 deaths among the security forces and 19 among the Sinaloa cartel.

Security expert Ricardo Marques said, "When you hold meetings like this, you comply with the fact that the Mexican authorities always have something to offer, sooner or later," considering that the arrest process does not affect the structure of the Sinaloa cartel, whose networks extend in 50 countries.

In 2021, the United States and Mexico announced a change in their approach to drug control policy, with a focus on the causes of this phenomenon after a purely military strategy applied for 15 years.

Since 2006, 340,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico, and thousands have been reported missing without weakening the cartels.

Amid this bloodshed, the Mexican government has sued the US arms industries, accusing them of fueling violence among drug traffickers on Mexican soil.