Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said yesterday that he would write to US President Joe Biden to insist on the need to tackle the causes of migration from Central America.
“I will send him a letter because we cannot just be detaining” migrants, Lopez Obrador said at his daily news conference.
“We must address the causes. People do not leave their towns for the pleasure,” he said.
Lopez Obrador has repeatedly proposed expanding one of his domestic welfare programmes into Central America in the aim of generating 1.2mn jobs in the region.
The scheme, named Sembrando Vida, provides economic grants to agricultural producers.
Lopez Obrador has also proposed allowing participants to qualify for a US work visa after three years.
Authorities in southern Mexico this week detained dozens of mostly Central American migrants, including children, heading for the United States on foot as they seek to escape poverty, violence and other problems.
“The purpose is to keep migrants in the southeast of the country as far as possible,” Lopez Obrador said.
Allowing them to travel across Mexico “brings many risks of human rights violations, especially on the northern border,” he said.