MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday called for a meeting of foreign ministers from 10 countries around Latin America to discuss migration, as record numbers of people make the dangerous crossing through the Darien Gap.
"It's not an issue that concerns only Mexico, it's a structural issue and it we need to face it this way," Lopez Obrador told a regular morning press conference, adding he expected the meeting would take place in approximately 10 days.
"We need to make a joint plan," he added, referring to protections for migrants as well as combating the root causes that force people - many from Venezuela, Cuba and countries in Central America - to leave their homes.
On Tuesday, the Mexican government's migration authority said it had deployed over 260 buses and vans to disperse over 8,000 migrants from the southern city of Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala, to other parts of the country.
Large numbers of migrants have been crossing into the United States from Mexico in recent weeks, piling pressure on the Biden administration to stem the flow of people as the U.S. 2024 presidential election race begins to heat up.
(Reporting by Raul Cortes; Editing by Kylie Madry)