MEXICO CITY — President Joe Biden’s visit to Mexico this week, with a short layover in El Paso on Sunday, could change the border narrative from chaos to opportunity — at least that’s the hope of local leaders.
Once considered as a potentially prosperous and dynamic zone, the border has instead been vilified as a place of crisis and security threats on the U.S. side and organized crime on the Mexican side, say economic experts like Raymond Robertson, director of the Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics, and Public Policy at Texas A&M University.
The region could help North America address its supply chain challenges and labor shortages, but is now paralyzed by fear of an “invasion” by immigrants, in the words of Republican leaders who blast “Biden’s open border.”
