Mexico’s June 19 approval of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement brings the updated version of the North American Free Trade Agreement one important step closer to ratification.

While the U.S. Congress may not vote on the trade agreement in the next few weeks, Richard Owen, vice president of global business development at the Produce Marketing Association, said lawmakers may act by late summer.

“I do think there is a window to have it come up before Congress recesses in August,” Owen said.
Owen said Mexico’s approval has added motivation for the U.S. and Canada to act.

Now that President Trump’s imports tariffs on Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminum have been lifted — combined with the fact that Trump’s threatened tariffs on imports of Mexican goods tied to immigration enforcement were avoided — Owen said the major obstacles for USMCA approval were removed.

“We would like to see it come up for a vote and get approved as quickly as possible,” he said.

Owen said he doesn’t believe the administration’s May termination of the tomato suspension agreement between Mexican tomato growers and the Commerce Department will have any effect on the vote by Congress.

What’s more, the desire by some U.S. growers for seasonal trade protection against imports from Mexico also is unlikely to hinder the deal, he said.

“I think the administration at this point would want to keep the agreement pretty clean,” Owen said.
Even so, some lawmakers were urging the administration to keep the seasonality provision out of USMCA.

Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., penned a letter urging the administration to protect American consumers and farmers by keeping a “seasonality” provision out of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

In a letter sent to U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Robert Lighthizer, McSally and other lawmakers from Arizona, Texas, and California express their opposition to the inclusion of any seasonality provision in legislation implementing the USMCA, according to a news release.

“Cross-border commerce with Mexico is critical to Arizona’s economy and workforce,” McSally said in a news release. “Any seasonality provision incorporated into the USMCA would negatively impact Arizona’s hardworking families with higher costs at the grocery store and dinner table. I have expressed my opposition to such a provision to the administration and will continue to fight for Arizona jobs and families.”

On June 14, the U.S. International Trade Commission published a notice in the Federal Register that said the group was resuming of the final phase of anti-dumping investigation to determine whether U.S. tomato growers were materially injured because of imports of fresh tomatoes from Mexico, preliminarily determined by the Department of Commerce to be sold at less than fair value. The commission said a timeline for the final phase of this investigation will be issued later.

Congress will soon decide whether to ratify the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the trade Opens a New Window. deal that would update NAFTA in several ways. Most importantly, the new pact would significantly strengthen intellectual property Opens a New Window. rights.

It’s hard to overstate the value of IP rights to America’s economy. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reports that IP-intensive industries account for 45.5 million U.S. jobs and more than $6 trillion in GDP.

Without strong IP rights, the industries that enhance our lives would cease to function. Congress can set the stage for years of job creation and economic growth by ratifying the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

Innovation isn’t cheap or easy. This is especially true in my industry of biopharmaceuticals. It costs an average of $2.6 billion and often takes more than a decade to develop just one new medicine.

By patenting their drug designs, biopharmaceutical firms can prevent rivals from creating knockoff medicines for a limited time. That enables innovative firms to earn a return on investment and plow the revenues into new lines of research, leading to yet more innovation.

Today, the biopharmaceutical sector supports 4.7 million American jobs and contributes more than $1.3 trillion a year to the economy — none of which would be possible without our nation’s strong IP protections.

Other IP-intensive sectors have similarly impressive statistics. Copyright industries support 5.7 million jobs, while the tech industry employs 6.7 million.

Importantly, these creative industries produce the majority of American exports, which help reduce the trade deficit. These sectors account for about $840 billion in merchandise exports and another $80 billion in service exports annually.

The USMCA contains numerous intellectual property provisions. For instance, the deal would create a Committee on Intellectual Property Rights. Representatives from each country would work together to boost enforcement of IP rights and improve transparency in issues concerning trade secrets.

That’s a necessary reform to prevent IP theft. By one estimate, the sale of counterfeit American goods costs our economy $29 billion a year. Stolen trade secrets, meanwhile, cost businesses and workers $180 billion.

The USMCA also includes critical protections for sophisticated drugs known as “biologics,” which represent some of the most promising cures of the future. Policies like these will preserve the incentive for American individuals and companies to innovate and protect them from IP theft.

American, Canadian, and Mexican leaders already finalized the terms of the USMCA back in November, but Congress hasn’t yet approved the deal. There’s little reason to wait.The USMCA would give the nation’s most innovative and creative industries the security they need to create jobs and grow our economy. Passing it is a no-brainer.

President Donald Trump’s tariff threats against Mexico are harming the Americas, Miguel Basanez, former Mexican ambassador to the U.S., told CNBC on Wednesday.

They are also bolstering another U.S. trade foe, he added.

The 5% duties on all Mexican imports are set to take effect Monday and are expected to gradually rise to 25% by October.

“What he is doing, he is weakening the economic zone of the Americas and he’s weakening the economic area of Europe, ” Basanez said in an interview with “The Exchange. ” “Then what he’s doing is strengthening China. ”

The U.S. and China have been engaged in an escalating trade war, with each country upping tariffs on the other.

But Trump’s latest target is Mexico. In a surprise move last week, the president said he was imposing the tariffs to stop immigrants from coming through Mexico and crossing illegally into the U.S. The announcement came just as the approval process for the new trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada started to get underway.

However, White House trade advisor Peter Navarro said earlier Wednesday on CNN that the tariffs “may not have to go into effect,” depending on the outcomes of talks scheduled between a Mexican delegation and Vice President Mike Pence Wednesday afternoon.

“We believe that these tariffs may not have to go into effect precisely because we have the Mexicans’ attention,” Navarro said.

Republican senators have also signaled they oppose the duties.

Basanez said the impact of the potential tariffs are already being felt in the Mexican currency, the peso. It plunged against the U.S. dollar after the tariff announcement, erasing all of its 2019 gains, but has since pared some of those losses.

“That’s the reason why the delegation of Mexicans is up there rather than just ignoring” Trump’s threats, he said.

However, there could also be another result from the latest trade tiff.

“What President Trump is doing is pushing Mexico to start talking to China,” Basanez said. “If he really goes on with his threat, Mexico will have not much options.”

The president who is in Ireland, said Wednesday that he thinks Mexico wants to make a trade deal, but if it does not stop the control of migrants, the levies will go into effect.

“Mexico can stop it. They have to stop it, otherwise we just won’t be able to do business. It’s a very simple thing. And I think they will stop it. I think they want to do something. I think they want to make a deal, and they sent their top people to try and do it,” Trump said.

However, seven former U.S. ambassadors to Mexico warned in a CNBC op-ed Wednesday that the tariffs could not only damage the economies of the U.S. and Mexico, but may make the migrant issue even worse. “Damaging Mexico’s economy will cripple its capacity to tackle migrant flows as well as the economic growth that contributed to ‘net zero’ Mexican migration to the U.S. today,” they wrote.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Basanez’s remarks.

Mexico’s economy contracted by 0.2 percent in the first quarter of the year, revised government data confirmed Friday, a rough start for new President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The contraction raises the specter of recession just months into the anti-establishment leftist’s six-year term, threatening his promise to “transform” the country and deliver average annual GDP growth of four percent.

The revised number for January to March was the same as the preliminary figure released in April, which took economic analysts by surprise and triggered talk of a possible recession — two or more consecutive quarters of contraction — in Latin America’s second-largest economy.

Mexico’s economy registered zero growth in the fourth quarter of 2018, according to the national statistics institute, INEGI.

Lopez Obrador — widely known as “AMLO” — downplayed the data.

“There’s still time” to reach his target of two-percent growth for 2019, he told a press conference.

MEXICO CITY • Ikea, the world’s largest furniture seller, will open its first store in Mexico next year and plans to launch other stores around the country, the company said on Wednesday, as it expands in Latin America to counter growing competition in its core US and European markets.

The Swedish chain, known for its modern and inexpensive designs, will open a store in eastern Mexico City in autumn next year and also sell its products online, Mr Malcolm Pruys, the country retail manager for Ikea Mexico, said at an event in the capital.

Ikea also plans to target a number of other cities of varying sizes throughout the country, he added in an interview. “We’re setting a reasonably aggressive expansion plan,” he said.

The first store will be medium-sized, offering 7,500 products and a restaurant able to seat more than 650 people, with a warehouse off-site for e-commerce.

Ikea’s traditional model has called for vast warehouses on city outskirts packed with goods. But the retailer has recently developed compact formats, allowing it to branch into smaller cities, Mr Pruys said.

Ikea has 427 stores across 52 markets. Stores in Europe and the United States drive the majority of sales for Inter Ikea Group and its franchisees, but rival retailers, especially online, are increasingly vying for shoppers.

Late last year, Ikea announced plans to enter Latin America, including Chile, Colombia and Peru.

The plans to launch in Mexico began four years ago. On Wednesday, several Ikea executives met Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who was pleased by Ikea’s confidence in Mexico, Mr Pruys said.

“There is great movement in Mexico around cleaning up corruption,” he said. “We think there’s a big opportunity for Mexico’s economy to continue to grow.”

Ikea is working on plans for a variety of payment options for online shopping, aiming to reach Mexico’s vast unbanked population, he added.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration reached an agreement with Canada and Mexico to lift tariffs on metal imports, resolving a yearlong standoff that inflamed North Atlantic tensions and complicated efforts to ratify a revised trade deal.

“I’m pleased to announce we’ve just reached agreement with Canada and Mexico,” President Trump said on Friday. “We’ll be selling our product into those countries without the imposition of tariffs.”

As part of the agreement, both Mexico and Canada agreed to lift retaliatory tariffs on American products. Instead of tariffs, the nations would set up a system for monitoring and enforcement in case of import surges into the United States.

In a statement on Friday afternoon, the United States trade representative said that the metal tariffs would be removed and that both Mexico and Canada “had agreed on the removal of all retaliatory tariffs imposed on American goods by those countries.”

The Mexican government also said that it had reached an agreement with the United States to lift the steel and aluminum tariffs. In a statement issued by the office of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the government said that there would be no quotas.

“Tariff-free trade will be restored in these products,” the statement said.

For its part, Mexico said that it would lift the retaliatory tariffs that it had imposed. Both countries agreed to take measures to avoid dumping and to establish a process to monitor steel and aluminum trade between the two countries.

“Mexico reached a highly satisfying agreement with the United States,” the statement said.

Speaking from Stelco, one of the two major producers in Canada’s steel-making epicenter of Hamilton, Ontario, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada said on Friday that the deal was “pure good news.”

Mr. Trudeau, appearing jubilant, signaled that the lifting of the tariffs could help clear the way for the ratification of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement reached late last year. “We are very optimistic we will be able to move forward in coming weeks,” he said, adding the deal was “a huge step forward.”

The prime minister said that the deal stemmed from steady conversations with the United States, including Mr. Trump, and that both sides agreed that the tariffs were “harming workers and consumers on both sides of the border.”

In recent weeks, the pressure on Mr. Trump to reach an accord with Canada and Mexico began to outweigh his affection for the tariffs.

According to a congressional aide who has been involved in the talks among the three countries, the White House was growing increasingly sensitive to pressure from Republicans in rural states, whose farmers have been suffering from retaliation that diminished their access to sell in neighboring markets. Their problems were compounded when talks with China broke down this month, this person said, and ultimately Mr. Trump decided that he needed a victory on trade.

The decision to ease the 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent tariffs on aluminum came as the White House also announced a six-month delay in determining whether to impose levies on foreign automobiles. That extension delivers a temporary reprieve to global automakers and auto suppliers, which had been bracing for punishing tariffs of up to 25 percent. But it sets up a tight deadline for the president and his advisers to reach trade deals with Japan, Europe and potentially other countries.

Farmers, ranchers and business groups had been pushing to lift the metal tariffs, to encourage Canada and Mexico to remove the tariffs they have placed on American products in return. Canadian and Mexican levies on products like pork, cheese and milk have especially hurt American farmers who are already smarting from Mr. Trump’s trade conflicts with China and Europe.

The agreement is likely to help the administration focus on the other trade fights it is waging, most notably fractious negotiations with China, which nearly collapsed last week. And it will remove one obstacle to the passage of the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement in Congress.

The United States, Canada and Mexico signed that trade deal, the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, in November. The pact still needs to be ratified by legislatures in all three countries.

American lawmakers of both parties, as well as Canada and Mexico, had insisted that tariffs on steel and aluminum must be lifted before votes would be held. Lawmakers have argued that the tariffs, while aimed at other countries, hurt American companies and consumers by raising prices for products that use imported steel and aluminum.

Even with an agreement to resolve metal tariffs, the North American pact still faces potential opposition from congressional Democrats. They have criticized its labor and environmental protections as insufficiently weak, and said that its protections for drug companies may undermine their efforts to make health care more affordable.

Canada, like Mexico, has repeatedly said it would not ratify the new North American Free Trade Agreement, which Mr. Trump considers one of his signature economic achievements, unless the metal tariffs were lifted. Canada has argued that the tariffs undermined both countries’ economies and were particularly counterproductive given the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement reached last year.

“Certainly, for the ratification of the U.S.M.C.A., it’s a step forward,” said Patrick Leblond, a senior fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation, a think tank.

In its announcement on Friday, Canada said that the two countries would set up measures to block imports of metals that are unfairly subsidized or sold at below-market prices. In the event of a surge in imported products, the countries would carry out consultations, and if those were not successful, the governments could impose a tariff on the individual product of 25 percent for steel and 10 percent for aluminum, it said.

After Mr. Trump imposed the metals tariffs last June, the move drew anger, bemusement and disappointment in the metals industry and across the political spectrum in Canada. Canadians were irate that Mr. Trump appeared intent on punishing Canada, a major trading partner and traditionally one of its most ardent allies. Backed by all three of Canada’s three major political parties, the Canadian government retaliated with import duties on $12.6 billion of American products, including ballpoint pens and industrial pipes.

The White House’s justification of the tariffs by citing national security drew particular scorn in Canada, where many were already reeling from Mr. Trump’s bullying and mocking of Mr. Trudeau and his trade policies. Some called for boycotts of American products and avoiding taking vacations in the United States.

The American tariffs were particularly punishing to Canada because it buys more American steel than any other country, according to the Canadian government, while nearly 90 percent of Canadian steel and aluminum exports go to the United States. In 2017, the Canadian steel industry employed more than 23,000 Canadians and the aluminum industry about 10,500 workers. After the imposition of the duties, some economists predicted it could cost the Canadian economy more than $3 billion Canadian dollars annually.

Shares of San Mateo-based action camera maker GoPro, Inc. jumped more than 7.5 percent in midday trading today, after the company said it would begin producing U.S.-bound cameras in Mexico in June, in an attempt to avoid President Trump’s escalating trade war with China.

GoPro shares began the month trading at around $5.85 per share, but crossed $7 per share today, representing a two-week gain of roughly 20 percent. The stock hasn’t traded above $7 per share since October.

The camera company said it’s activating a new production line in Guadalajara that will make cameras bound for U.S. retailers. Those cameras will begin appearing on store shelves in the third quarter.

“As stated previously, our decision to move most of our U.S. bound production to Mexico supports our goal to insulate us against possible tariffs as well as recognize some cost savings and efficiencies,” GoPro CFO Brian McGee said in a statement.

GoPro will continue manufacturing cameras in China, but will export those cameras to international retailers. The company initially announced the move in December, anticipating that the trade war with China might continue to escalate.

Their two weeks of gains stands in stark contrast with Cupertino-based iPhone maker Apple Inc., which has seen its shares fall more than 9 percent since the start of the month.

Apple’s supply chain is far more complicated than GoPro’s, and new tariffs on Apple’s entire product line could either eat into the company’s profit margin or get passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Analysts at JPMorgan say Apple would need to raise consumer prices on the iPhone by 14 percent to maintain its existing profit margin, turning a $1,000 phone into a $1,142 phone, CNBC reports. Analysts at Bank of America estimate Apple would have to increase the retail price of the iPhone by 20 percent if it were to shift manufacturing from China to the U.S.

“We estimate the incremental cost of manufacturing iPhones in the U.S. could be 15-25%, and, if passed on to consumers could lead to demand destruction, in our view,” Bank of America analysts wrote.

Trump on Friday raised tariffs on some $200 billion worth of Chinese exports, and threatened to enact new tariffs on the remaining $325 billion of Chinese goods. China responded Monday with retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion worth of American exports.

It appears the Trump administration isn’t all that interested in a deal to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) after all.

Last week, White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney was sanguine about the prospect of Congress rejecting NAFTA’s proposed replacement, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). “You could stay status quo,” Mulvaney told a California business conference. “Your real Plan Bs are either NAFTA or withdraw from NAFTA.”

It might be that U.S. President Donald Trump has reverted to his years-long preference to simply kill NAFTA without replacing it.

Trump won’t budge on the reasonable changes that Congressional Democrats seek to make to the USMCA agreement.

He also seems determined to keep in place the steel and aluminum tariffs he applied against Canada and Mexico about a year ago. And that alone pretty much guarantees that all three national legislatures will reject USMCA.

Citing the harm that Canada and Mexico’s retaliatory tariffs have done in his state, U.S. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, in charge of spearheading USMCA’s passage in the U.S. Senate, said last month that “If these tariffs aren’t lifted, USMCA is dead.”

Yet U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said recently that the tariffs will be revisited only after USMCA ratification. That makes USMCA ratification unlikely.

But the odds of NAFTA’s demise are also low. Only Capitol Hill, not the president, can kill a treaty.

Grassley, for one, won’t be a party to NAFTA’s demise. His state, Iowa, has reaped a quadrupling of agricultural exports under NAFTA.

Canada’s plan for salvaging NAFTA must include continued pressure on U.S. federal and state legislators, and constant reminders of the 12 million U.S. jobs tied to the trade agreement.

MEXICO CITY/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Japan’s SoftBank Group invested about $20 million in Mexican payments startup Clip early this year, one of its first Latin America deals as it launches a $5 billion technology fund in the region, said three people familiar with the matter.

The technology conglomerate’s cash injection was part of a round that raised roughly $100 million, two of the people said last week.

Clip’s valuation after the transaction rose to between $350 million and $400 million, the two sources said. Clip’s total funding to date is roughly $160 million.

Clip told Reuters SoftBank and New York investment firm General Atlantic have invested in the company, without providing details.

SoftBank Latin America chief executive Marcelo Claure declined to comment on Clip in an interview last month.

SoftBank struck the deal shortly before announcing in March that it would launch the $5 billion Innovation Fund focusing on Latin America.

Mexican investors hope the fund’s deep pockets will be a gamechanger for young companies that struggle to fundraise locally.

“Growth will be faster, more dramatic and more competitive,” Fernando Gonzalez, a partner at Virginia-based QED Investors and CEO of Mexican fintech startup Coru, said last week.

SoftBank announced a $1 billion investment in Colombian delivery app Rappi last Tuesday, citing the startup’s swift growth as a sign of opportunity in the region. Along with fintech, SoftBank also plans to target e-commerce, healthcare and mobility.

The $20 million Clip investment is unusually small for a firm that typically leads funding rounds and writes checks at least four times that size. SoftBank is also famed for running the world’s largest technology fund, with $100 billion in capital.

But, unlike Asia and the United States, Latin America is a nascent tech market where startups typically have lower valuations and face less competition, meaning even small cash infusions propel growth. In Mexico, startups rarely raise $100 million in a single go.

Claure, who oversees the fund, said in early April the firm had closed some deals and was in the process of finalizing others. His team has looked at more than 140 companies in Latin America, he added.

SoftBank typically pours cash into the most promising companies in each sector within each region that it targets, aiming to help companies scale fast and push out competitors.

Clip, founded in 2012, offers a mobile credit card reader that fits onto smartphones. Businesses across Mexico such as cafes, corner stores and street vendors have adopted the service as a simple, low-cost way to accept cards rather than just cash.

Investors see Mexico as an attractive market for fintech because many people do not have bank accounts but have access to mobile phones, said Eric Perez-Grovas, general partner at local investment firm Jaguar Ventures.

“You have the perfect elements to create fintech giants in this country,” he said.

Long lines for cargo trucks trying to cross into the U.S. are affecting businesses on the border and beyond, according to testimony before a U.S. House Homeland Security subcommittee in Washington, D.C., this week.

“What we’re experiencing along the border threatens the economic security of our country,” Jon Barela, CEO of the Borderplex Alliance, told federal lawmakers.

The alliance promotes economic development in Doña Ana County, El Paso and Ciudad Juárez.

The hearing before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security, Facilitation and Operations examined the effects of the Trump administration’s policies on border communities.

One result is cargo trucks in long lines backed up into Mexico for miles waiting to cross into the U.S. after 750 Customs and Border Protection officers were removed from ports of entry and reassigned to help Border Patrol agents deal with an influx of migrants seeking asylum.

“We’re in total agreement that the ripple effect could turn into a tsunami for the United States if we don’t solve these wait times, which we are currently experiencing between 8 and 24 hours as we speak,” Barela testified.

Nearly $82 billion worth of trade between the U.S. and Mexico comes through ports of entry annually in the region that includes Doña Ana County, El Paso and Juárez.

“We simply cannot do business in our region nor can the United States afford this sort of ripple effect, which will, again, become an economic tsunami if we’re not careful,” Barela testified.

‘Utter chaos and confusion’ at ports of entry

Companies using New Mexico’s busiest border crossing, Santa Teresa, are also coping with long delays.

“They’re on very tight supply chains, just in time, and those have been disrupted and not just here. The disruption goes all the way back to the Midwest,” said Border Industrial Association President and CEO Jerry Pacheco.

The truck lines had stretched into Mexico up to five hours, but now the lines are about three hours, Pacheco said. The delays are still much longer than usual, and some don’t make it across and into the U.S. before the Santa Teresa port of entry closes at 8 p.m.

“If they’re an hour out, they just sleep in their trucks at night to keep their place in line,” Pacheco said.

The subcommittee chairwoman, U.S. Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-NY, told the hearing that Congress had approved a Department of Homeland Security budget that included $60 million to hire an additional 1,000 Customs and Border Protection officers to staff ports of entry.

“The administration’s border policies, coupled with the president’s threats to close the border altogether and his incendiary immigration rhetoric, have created utter chaos and confusion at our ports of entry,” Rice said in her opening remarks.

More technology needed at border

U.S. Rep. Xochitl Torres Small, a Democrat who represents southern New Mexico’s border region, also serves on the subcommittee and reiterated the impact of long wait times in her district.

“We lost an estimated 20 percent of our workforce, resulting in the closure of multiple commercial lanes and wait time of up to six hours for trucks to cross the border,” Torres Small said.

She wants CBP to employ more technology to protect the border and facilitate trade at busy ports of entry.

“Every day, thousands of trucks and cars pass through our ports of entry. But due to staffing shortages and inefficient technology, only a small percentage of vehicles are scanned by nonintrusive inspection technology for illicit drugs, contraband, and human trafficking,” Torres Small said.

“By investing in smarter and more efficient technology at our ports of entry, such as NII (nonintrusive inspection technology), we are both enhancing the safety of communities across the U.S. and growing our economy through increased flows of legitimate trade,” she said in a statement released Wednesday with Texas Republican Dan Crenshaw about a letter they sent to the acting secretary of homeland security asking for an update on implementing the nonintrusive inspection technology at border crossings.

Torres Small has also co-sponsored bipartisan legislation to hire more Border Patrol agents for rural areas like New Mexico’s Bootheel region.

‘Significant and meaningful’ resources needed

Expert testimony about the effects of policies on border communities at Tuesday’s hearing also included the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of El Paso, the director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, and the Pima County sheriff from Arizona, who represented the Southwestern Border Sheriffs’ Coalition.

Bishop Mark Seitz told the subcommittee about the diocese’s temporary shelters for migrant families seeking asylum.

“My brother bishops and I also remain deeply troubled by the administration’s recent efforts to curtail the ability of asylum-seekers arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border to seek protection,” Bishop Seitz said.

The sheriff of Arizona’s largest border county called on lawmakers for help.

“We need action from Washington, D.C., not partisan politics,” said Pima County Sheriff Mark Napier. “We need significant and meaningful additional resources to bolster both our public safety and our humanitarian efforts to address this crisis.”