WASHINGTON, DC — The new administrations of U.S. President Donald Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum have ushered in a changed era of migration management and style of bilateral relations. An earlier era of hemispheric cooperation over migration controls and legal pathways has been supplanted by a U.S. strategy based on large-scale deportations and threatened tariffs. Yet dramatic changes to migration patterns in and through the Americas and evolving regional challenges around immigrant integration and other issues underscore a basic truth: the U.S. and Mexican governments fundamentally need each other to accomplish their policy objectives. No country has been more critical to U.S. border enforcement efforts than Mexico, which at times in 2024 recorded more migrant encounters in its territory than did the U.S. Border Patrol. A new Migration Policy Institute (MPI) policy brief out today examines a period of shifting migration in the Western Hemisphere in which it has become clear that no country, including the United States, can effectively manage large-scale migration and humanitarian protection needs on its own. For the first time, almost all countries across the Americas are facing migration management challenges, whether hosting and integrating new arrivals or managing transit through their territory. In Facing New Migration Realities: U.S.-Mexico Relations and Shared Interests, Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, Doris Meissner and Andrew Selee provide an account of the shifts in unauthorized migration and humanitarian protection trends in recent years, and the role the U.S.-Mexico relationship has played—and will continue to play—in responding to critical migration challenges. Drawing on in-depth interviews and roundtables with U.S. and Mexican policymakers, researchers and leaders of international and civil-society organizations, the policy brief examines regional uncertainty over maintaining existing cooperation levels in the face of growing U.S. pressure and escalating demands, especially if irregular migration spikes again in the future. To overcome future challenges in migration management, the authors argue, Mexico and the United States should work together to: - Establish a transparent, shared border infrastructure at the Mexico-Guatemala border, with U.S. support, to manage irregular migration and accomplish labor and protection screening at and beyond the Mexico-Guatemala border.
- Combat cross-national migrant smuggling organizations, using follow-the-money strategies that have proven effective in counter-terrorism investigations.
- Strengthen labor pathways between Mexico and the United States to help meet U.S. labor needs and reduce the economic pressures that drive unauthorized migration from Mexico.
Whether termed border control and migration management or national security, understanding shared challenges and differing capacities will be crucial for bilateral, and likely hemispheric, negotiations and goals in the long term. As the authors write, “As the new administrations in Mexico City and Washington, DC set their courses for the period ahead, they would do well to advance their respective national interests by incorporating strategies that address the deeper complexities of irregular movement, consider the lessons from prior hemispheric collaboration and leadership models, and promote migration through channels that are legal, safe and orderly.” Read the policy brief here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/us-mexico-relations-interests. For more about the U.S.-Mexico relationship amid the threat of tariffs, check out this recent analysis: www.migrationpolicy.org/news/tariff-threats-trump-sheinbaum-migration. For more MPI analysis, visit the Building a Regional Migration System initiative: www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/regional-migration. | 
