Q24N (EFE) The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, announced this Monday that his government will grant one-year temporary visas to Central Americans to work in the country’s public works, such as the Mayan Train, one of the most emblematic constructions of the Administration.
“This week I am going to present a program for our Central American brothers so that they can have temporary visas to work in public works in Mexico, that they can be legally in our country with temporary work visas,” the president reported in his conference. daily press.
The Mexican president specified the work periods could be intermittent and would be well paid.
“Salaries are also increasing in our country, on the Mayan Train the operators, drivers, workers are already earning better, because there is more demand for employment, so companies are paying more. They are attractive salaries to come, work 15 days and return,” he explained.
Last Saturday, López Obrador continued, he received a letter from his US counterpart, Joe Biden, to congratulate him on the work carried out on the immigration issue and expressing his commitment to invest more in Central America and the Caribbean.
“We are working together,” said the Mexican president about this type of immigration policy, which he said still needs to be “fine-tuned.”
“It is not correct to be rejecting migrants when a labor force is needed. If not, how is there going to be growth? There are places in the United States where there are no workers,” he added.
López Obrador admitted that the public works promoted during his six-year term, among which the Mayan Train and the interoceanic corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec stand out, are also in need of labor.
“We need many ironworkers, welders, even engineers, professionals,” he stressed.
For the Mayan Train, which will run through the southern region of Mexico and is scheduled to open next December, he added that the government is sending drivers or mechanics to Europe to receive training.
Public works, which López Obrador has turned into the flagship projects of his Administration, have been surrounded by controversy due to the role that the Armed Forces are playing in their construction and management, framed in a series of strategies that have promoted the militarization of the country.
The environmental impact and impact on indigenous communities that the Mayan Train will have has also been criticized, effects that the Government has denied.
Regarding potential workers from Central American countries such as Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua, from where many migrants arrive in Mexico seeking to cross into the United States, López Obrador did not clarify the procedure they will have to carry out to obtain temporary work visa.
