US President Joe Biden held a bilateral meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Friday (local time) to reaffirm the close partnership between the two nations.

“President Biden held a bilateral meeting with President Sanchez of Spain to reaffirm the close partnership between our nations,” tweeted The White House. Both leaders discussed issues of strategic relevance ranging from the war in Ukraine to trade and immigration.

But efforts by the US and Spain to cooperate on asylum processing loomed large over the discussion as the Biden administration rolls out new immigration measures now that COVID-19 immigration restrictions have ended, reported The Washington Post.

Biden commended Sanchez for his country’s collaboration with the United States and Canada to establish migration hubs in Latin America where asylum seekers fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries can apply for protection.

The new efforts are designed to crack down on illegal border crossings while opening legal pathways to give migrants incentives to apply for asylum online where they are, instead of making the dangerous journey to the border, reported The Washington Post.

“We’re both facing the challenges of migration in the Western Hemisphere,” Biden told Sanchez at the start of the Oval Office meeting.

The coronavirus restrictions, known as Title 42, were a Trump administration endeavour that went into effect in March 2020 amid the global pandemic. Title 42 allowed border officials to turn away migrants to help stop the spread of COVID-19. But there were concerns the policies were put into place merely to keep people out.

While Title 42 was used to deny asylum more than 2.8 million times, it carried no legal consequences, which encouraged repeat attempts by migrants to enter the U.S. The public health emergency officially ended on Thursday night and with it the restrictions.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was also high on the agenda for Biden and Sanchez, two NATO allies, reported The Washington Post.

Sanchez told reporters following the meeting that he and Biden discussed their countries’ continuing efforts to support Ukraine as Russia’s invasion grinds on.

Sanchez recently met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, both of whom have put forward ideas to end the conflict, reported The Washington Post.

White House officials have dismissed China’s 12-point peace plan, and called on Beijing to use its influence to urge Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war.

Sanchez said that Spain, which will assume the rotating presidency of the European Council in July, is committed to a “lasting and just peace” to resolve the Ukraine crisis. He made clear that he sides with Biden and other Western allies in condemning Russian aggression.

“Make no mistake, in this war there is an aggressor and victim,” Sanchez said. “And in this war the aggressor is President Putin.”