WITH OPEN ARMS:

[Roberta Jacobson, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, ] will also help manage Washington's relations with Mexico and other Central American countries that experts said have frayed during the past four years amid the Trump administration's harsh crackdown on immigration and unsuccessful efforts to build a wall along the full length of the U.S-Mexico border.

Under Trump, "there have been a lot of ups and downs with the U.S.-Mexico relationship," said Mari Carmen Aponte, a former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and acting assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs under President Barack Obama. "From my point of view, the downs have been a lot, and very dramatic and politically difficult. And the ups? I think both sides wish that there would have been many more than there were."

Biden's incoming administration plans to address the root causes of migration; expand legal pathways to immigrating, including through refugee resettlement and employment programs; and explore ways to reform the asylum process, according to a Biden transition spokesperson.

President-elect Joe Biden is expected to unveil a massive immigration bill on the first day of his presidency which would provide an eight-year path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States. However, the bill reportedly won't increase fortifications at the southern U.S. border beyond their current level.

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