US Officials in Mexico to Discuss Fentanyl, Human Migration

Senior U.S. officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken were in Mexico on Wednesday for talks with Mexican officials on the drug trade and a humanitarian crisis at the U.S. southern border.

Blinken will be joined by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The U.S. delegation is set to meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Rosa Icela Rodriguez, secretary for Security and Citizen Protection.

The meeting comes at a time of rising tension between the two nations. The United States is in the middle of an epidemic of opioid addiction that claims more than 100,000 lives each year. Most of the deaths are attributable to fentanyl, a potent narcotic trafficked across the border by Mexico-based drug cartels.

At the same time, the U.S. southern border faces a daily deluge of migrants, often numbering in the thousands, who use Mexico as a jumping-off point for efforts to enter the U.S., either illegally or to apply for asylum as refugees.