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President Joe Biden and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez held talks in the White House as their countries are collaborating along with Canada to establish migration hubs in Latin America where asylum seekers fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries can go to apply for protection.
They spoke briefly to reporters in the Oval Office, before the U.S. and Spanish delegations sat down for further talks.
But efforts by the U.S. and Spain to cooperate on asylum processing will loom large over the White House talks as the Biden administration rolls out new immigration measures now that COVID-19 immigration restrictions have ended. The changes could fundamentally alter how migrants arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The new efforts are designed to crack down on illegal border crossings while opening up legal pathways meant to incentivize migrants to apply for asylum online where they are, instead of making the dangerous and often deadly journey to the border. Those migrants caught illegally crossing the southern U.S. border cannot return for five years, and they face criminal prosecution if they do.
And migrants will be barred from seeking asylum at the border if they did not first ask for protection in a country they traveled through or apply online.
A major piece of the expanded legal pathway is the creation of processing centers in Colombia and Guatemala and up to 100 others in the Western Hemisphere where migrants can go to apply to enter the U.S., Spain or Canada.
It was a huge boon for the White House to get Spain and Canada to agree to take in asylum seekers from Latin America. And it helps reinforce the Biden administration’s argument that the current migration quandary facing the Americas is a global problem that needs a global solution — much like the refugee crises that have impacted Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine in recent years.
Sánchez is also expected to discuss with Biden his recent talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, both of whom have put forward ideas to end the conflict. Sánchez is expected to urge Biden to take into account the opinions of other countries affected by the war outside Europe.
This article was provided by The Associated Press.