Biden touches on US/ Mexico drug smuggling problem at North American Leaders Summit

By Mona Austin

(The Slice): Leaders of the United States, Canada and Mexico met at the 10th North American Leaders Summit on Tuesday and developed a cooperative plan to strengthen their democracies for the future.

(The Slice): For President Joe Biden's part of a tri-lateral press conference, he placed attention on immigration among other things. Days earlier, Biden had visited the border for the first time and heard the concerns of officials and border patrol agents. The Biden Administration has socme under scrutny for border management, just as Title 42, the policy that kept the door closed to thousands of migrants is idling. Until the roll out of a new set of immigration rules last week, the Adminsitration had responded to border security criticism with deference to the Department of Homeland Security and said that the issue persisted before Biden was elected.

Another main issue that needed to be discussed is drug crimes.

Much of the attention in the media is on immigration itself, yet the movement of drugs through a clandestine network of smugglers is also harmful to America. There is not a one-country soluition to combatting illegal migration or drug smuggling. The U.S. can't manage the alone. Both challnges require co-dependence from both nations. Pres. Biden was gracious about Mexico's role concerning conditions at the border while at the same time he made it known that they are being helpful with this part of the issue.

"In just the last six months, our joint patrols in Mexico have resulted in the arrest of more than 7,000 -- 7,000 human smugglers. And we’ve seized more than 20,000 pounds of deadly fentanyl at the border."

Bouth countries are plauged by the concern in differnt capcaities.

Once fentanyl is produced in Mexico, it is then smuggled into the United States primarily through ports of entry by Americans. The Drug Enforcement Agency says that “the most common method” of smuggling fentanyl into the country is “through U.S. [ports of entry] in passenger vehicles with concealed compartments or commingled with legitimate goods on tractor-trailers.” Top officials at ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations have confirmed that they are primarily arrsting Americans.

Now that Biden has had an opportunity to address the dual problems shared between the U.S. and Mexico , albeit briefly, there may be imporvements to resolution.

Immigration is feature in the Declration of North America agreement that was the outcome of the rilateral meeting with the leaders.