President Joe Biden has denied any intentional wrongdoing after classified documents were found in his private office last year.
“I take classified documents or classified information seriously,” he told reporters Tuesday in Mexico City after the 10th North American Leaders’ Summit.
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Biden said he was “surprised” that the 10 records were uncovered at the Washington, D.C., office of his think tank, the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, last November when his personal attorneys were closing the space. Those lawyers confirmed the existence of the materials this week.
“They immediately called the [National Archives],” Biden added. “We’re cooperating fully, cooperating fully with the review, which I hope will be finished soon.”
During the post-North American Leaders’ Summit conference, Biden thanked Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for agreeing to accept up to 30,000 immigrants each month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela who have had their asylum claims rejected by the United States.
“In today’s interconnected world, we cannot wall ourselves off from shared problems,” he said, referring to former President Donald Trump‘s signature border policy. “We are stronger and better when we work together.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Lopez Obrador similarly alluded to Trump, the latter praising Biden for not building “even 1 meter of wall.”
The joint statements were delivered after the leaders released a list of deliverables, covering economic and energy cooperation, in addition to coordinated responses to irregular immigration, as well as arms and drug smuggling.
New announcements made from Mexico City include what the trio described as “a virtual platform,” accessible through their Los Angeles Declaration website, to provide immigrants with information regarding “streamlined access to legal pathways” and a resource center in southern Mexico supported by private sector partners.
They also promised to resume the North American Strategy to Combat Trafficking in Persons Dialogue to help counter labor and sex trafficking.
The summit, too, was a platform for Biden and Lopez Obrador to mend relations after the Mexican leader declined to attend last year’s Summit of the Americas, which Biden hosted in Los Angeles. Lopez Obrador had urged Biden to invite the presidents of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Panama, but Biden decided not to based on their autocratic records.
Before their bilateral meeting Monday, Lopez Obrador told Biden in front of reporters that the U.S. should “do away with this abandonment, this disdain, and this forgetfulness for Latin America and the Caribbean.”
“President Biden, you hold the key in your hand to open and to substantially improve the relationship among all the countries of the American continent,” he said.
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Lopez Obrador added, “It implies consolidating ourselves as an economic region in the world, strengthening our fraternal relationship in the American continent, respecting our differences, our sovereignties, so that no one is left behind and so that all of us, together, we can start seeking the beautiful utopia of freedom, of liberty, equality, and true democracy.”
