Experts in the News

Mexico’s midterm elections on Sunday are the largest in the country’s history — and will decide if Morena, the party of Mexico’s left-wing populist president, will keep its majority in Congress. Experts from the Center for the United States and Mexico discussed the possible outcome and its implications.

On June 6, Mexico will hold the largest single-day election in the country's history. "If MORENA gets a two-thirds majority in the lower chamber, they will basically be able to drastically change the way electoral authorities work," said Javier Martin Reyes, an election law professor at CIDE.

U.S-Mexico experts Tony Payan and Pam Cruz discussed the biggest challenge in immigration reform today and the practical solutions that would make a difference.  Payan is the Françoise and Edward Djerejian Fellow for Mexico Studies.

Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a nonresident scholar at the Baker Institute Center for the United States and Mexico, said the key for the new facilities will be the financing and the conditions they offer for the child migrants coming from Central America. “One thing is the rhetoric and the intentions, but the real funding for the minors and the length of the commitment is another thing,” she said.

A mix of circumstance and policy change, said fellow Tony Payan. Since 2014, irregular immigration at the southwest border has been dominated by families and children fleeing Central America to escape poverty, gang violence, poor governance, and natural disasters. The same factors are at work today – including two hurricanes that buffeted Guatemala and Honduras late last year and are likely causing increased emigration from the two countries. Add to those factors the rebounding American economy, and the U.S. can appear like a particular land of promise for those in Central America continuing to shoulder the economic burden of COVID-19, said Payan.