Biden administration acknowledges border 'crisis' ahead of chat with Mexican president

The new administration is acknowledging an ongoing border “crisis” as President Biden prepares to hold a virtual meeting with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Briefing reporters ahead of the confab, a senior administration official said Mr. Biden will ask what more Mexico might do to stop the new surge of illegal immigrants, even as the president looks to show he has a plan to improve treatment of those who do reach the U.S. Mr. Lopez Obrador said over the weekend that he will propose a “Bracero”-style immigration program to Mr. Biden in the video chat, calling for hundreds of thousands of Mexican and Central American migrants to be admitted each year to the U.S. to work. The original Bracero program was instituted during World War II and lasted two decades, bringing in millions of migrant laborers who worked low-skilled jobs, with controls to try to make sure they went home when their time was up. The program became controversial over treatment of the workers and over claims they were undercutting American workers.The senior U.S. official briefing reporters said he had seen those reports, but that’s not the administration’s immediate interest.“For now, we are focused on managing a crisis at the border,” the official said...MORE