Mexico and the United States begin operations for the Bicentennial Understanding

January 24, 2022

Institutional Context

In October 2021, the United States and Mexico created the Bicentennial Framework for Security. Building on past security cooperation efforts, this Framework establishes a long-term approach for binational actions to pursue the safety and security of both societies. This mechanism is a joint binational effort to protect human rights, share information and best practices, prosecute those who violate the law, and regularly and transparently evaluate the impact of those efforts. The Framework comprises three goals: protecting people, preventing transborder crime, and pursuing criminal networks.

Mexico and the United States begin operations for the Bicentennial Framework1

On December, 14th, 2021, the Mexican delegation led by Secretary Marcelo Ebrard and Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez met with the American delegation, led by Ambassador Ken Salazar and the Chargé d'Affaires for Mexico, Stephanie Syptak-Ramnath; to begin operations for the Bicentennial Framework. Operations will begin through the review of the Action Plan and the installation of the High Level Security Group (GANSEG in Spanish). The Action Plan presented by the delegations responds to the shared vision that Presidents López Obrador and Biden have built at the bilateral level, and that seeks to reduce addictions and homicides, arms, people and drug trafficking, among other common priority objectives.

One of the highlights of the meeting was the commitment to form working subgroups: 1) the subgroup to protect our people; 2) the subgroup to prevent cross-border crimes; 3) the subgroup to persecute criminal networks; 4) the informative subgroup of the armed forces; and 5) the binational cooperation committee.