southern border. in a few hours he and the first lady will be welcomed at an official ceremony from mexico s president, kicking off this north american leaders summit. the talks also include canada s prime minister justin trudeau. the president is facing bipartisan criticism for not taking a closer look at the migrant dilemma during a visit to el paso, ex-text yesterday. his first trip to the border as president. now, he did not see nor did he meet with any migrants while there. for weeks cnn has been covering the crisis in el paso. thousands have been arriving, waiting for the potential easing of a policy that restricted migrants entry. cnn s m.j. lee is in mexico city. m.j., let s start with a preview of the summit. reporter: yeah, you know, the action is really going to be right behind us tonight at the national palace, where president biden will hold a bilateral meeting with the mexican president and then those two presidents will be joined by the canadian prime mini
any new plans as far as immigration is concerned. so obviously, this will again be a top issue for these three leaders. they ll obviously talk about a number of other issues like trade and just general economic cooperation between the three countries. m.j., when president biden was at the border in el paso, he didn t encounter or meet with or talk to any of the migrants. so what s the white house saying about that? reporter: yeah, you know, that was so notable, particularly given that president biden has come under so much pressure in recent months from all sides, particularly republican lawmakers to go down to the u.s. southern border for the first time and see with his own eyes the situation there. and he did of course get a good sense by talking to border o officials, meeting with local leaders and community leaders about the situation but he also ended up going to a migrant aid center and that aid center yesterday at least when the president was there didn t seem to have any mi