Mexico, Belize to Enhance Border Operations

Mexico and Belize seek to improve all border operations to guarantee more efficient legal procedures for international operations and travelers, as both countries extend their original Memorandum of Understanding to 2025. 

Mexico’s Jorge Nuño Lara, Minister of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport, and Belize’s Rodwell Ferguson, Minister of Transportation, will endorse a Memorandum of Understanding on International Passenger and Cargo Motor Transport. Both countries signed a document that gives continuity to the previous agreement from Oct. 25, 2017, to strengthen relationships between Mexico and Belize, while promoting legal certainty and road safety.

The efforts of both countries focus on giving legal certainty to the operations of commercial motor carriers, while regulating them to ensure they offer safe and efficient services. The Mexican Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport (SICT) explained that carriers from both countries can now obtain proof of their registration with the respective authorities to guarantee they are safe and compliant with transport regulations in Mexico and Belize, explained SICT via a press release. 
 

The countries will collaborate to fill gaps on all levels of government to improve cross-border cargo and passenger carriers’ operations. Both countries agreed that this instrument will provide major progress for road and citizen safety, while improving trade and activities on the border between Mexico and Belize. SICT highlighted that the signing of the endorsement will last until March 1, 2025.

"This instrument is an expression of the will of our countries to strengthen our neighborhood that unites and identifies us, based on common interests such as promoting legal certainty and road safety in the operations of our carriers on the common border,” says Nuño.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have argued that Mexico’s migration policy has been militarized by deploying a disproportionate share of its military, in comparison to conventional migration agents. Six organizations showed that numerous migrant arrests were carried out by Mexico’s military based on racial profiling, with a major share of immigrants entering Mexico through Belize, as reported by MBN.