U.S. President Joe Biden has named Roberta Jacobson, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 2016 to 2018, as his coordinator for the southwestern border on the National Security Council.
This a new position to oversee proposed reforms to the national asylum system and will have responsibility for implementing national security policy for Mexico and Central America. Noted political commentator José Díaz-Briseño called Jacobson “the architect of the security cooperation paradigm under which the U.S. and Mexico have cooperated during the past 13 years.” However, he added that this is a “bilateral security paradigm that (President Lopez Obrador) has openly questioned.” Another regional analyst called Jacobson “one of the most respected US. diplomats in the Western Hemisphere.”