MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) — Top Mexican and U.S. officials said they made progress Wednesday in emergency talks to stem a migration surge that is a major headache for President Joe Biden at the start of an election year.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unusual visit to Mexico City over Christmas week as the rival Republican Party pushes Biden for a migration crackdown in return for agreeing to one of his top priorities in Congress – support for Ukraine.

The day trip was announced abruptly last week after Biden spoke by phone with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who met for more than two hours with Blinken and other senior U.S. officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Lopez Obrador subsequently wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that “important agreements have been reached for the benefit of our peoples and nations,” without elaborating.

A senior Biden administration official said Mexican leaders told the U.S. delegation about the new measures they are taking, including cracking down on smugglers who take migrants to the border on buses or trains.

“We’ve been really impressed with some of the new measures that Mexico is taking, and we’ve seen a pretty significant drop in border crossings over the last few days,” the official told reporters on Blinken’s plane back to Washington under the usual condition of anonymity.

But the official said the United States knows it should “never draw conclusions based on daily fluctuations” on migrant numbers and said the countries will remain in close contact even in 2024, an election year in both countries would.

The number of people seeking to enter the U.S. without authorization has risen to around 10,000 per day this month, nearly double the number before the pandemic.

Few migrants are Mexican, most having fled in recent years from Central America, which is plagued by extreme poverty, rampant violence and crop failures made worse by climate change.

The number of migrants flowing through Mexico from Haiti, which has been devastated by gang violence and the lack of a functioning government, and from Venezuela, where basic goods have become scarce after years of economic chaos, has also increased.

“Nobody will stop migration”

Lopez Obrador said before the meeting that Mexico was “very helpful” in dealing with migration but that the solution was to create jobs.

“People are leaving their cities out of necessity and there are many economic and social crises in the world,” the left-wing leader said.

Since last weekend, a new caravan with hundreds if not thousands of people has been heading toward the US border on foot.

“Nobody is going to stop migration,” said activist and caravan organizer Luis Garcia Villagran, complaining that migrants were being treated as “currency” by the U.S. and Mexican governments.

“A budget of several billion dollars is currently being set to curb migration. “With all the gold and money in the world, they can’t stop people from seeking better living conditions,” he told reporters in southern Mexico.

DUAL GOVERNMENT PRIORITY

U.S. border authorities have been so overwhelmed that they have suspended several legal border crossings to focus on processing undocumented migrants.

Given the close trade ties between the two countries, reopening these border crossings is “a priority for us,” Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena told reporters after talks that she described as “excellent.”

Mexico has agreed to at least temporarily accept migrants seeking to enter the United States as part of agreements with both Biden and his Republican predecessor Donald Trump.

The package Biden proposed to Congress would also fund 1,300 additional Border Patrol agents to help combat migration.

The Biden administration has warned that without a deal, Ukraine will soon run out of weapons needed to repel the nearly two-year-old Russian invasion, announcing on Wednesday its final arms package under the existing authorization.

Republican hardliners have shown little sign of compromise.

Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination to challenge Biden next November, is once again relying on harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric in the election campaign and accuses foreigners of “poisoning the blood of our country.” Critics pointed out that the language was similar to that of Adolf Hitler.

Andrew Rudman, director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, said politicians around the world wanted a “short-term solution” to the long-standing problem of migration.

“The Biden administration, for domestic policy reasons, wants to show that it is doing everything it can,” he said. “There is no magic wand.”