López Obrador urges rejecting US-Mexico border ‘status quo’

Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador used a visit to the White House on Tuesday to call for rejecting the “status quo” on the border, but also praised a relationship with the U.S. that both he and President Joe Biden insisted remained strong despite a series of high-profile policy disagreements.

In lengthy comments at the start of meetings with Biden, López Obrador touched on the New Deal politics of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and chided conservatives. He also vowed that the U.S. and Mexico “should close ranks to help each other” amid spiking inflation and border challenges brutally underscored by 53 migrants who died last month after being abandoned in a sweltering tractor-trailer on a remote back road in San Antonio.