Twenty American countries, including Chile, pledged this Friday to expand opportunities to migrate legally and strengthen regional cooperation to contain the growing arrival of undocumented immigrants to the border of the United States and other countries, such as Colombia, Ecuador or Costa Rica.
The so-called “Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection”, a kind of continental code of conduct on migration issues, was signed in a ceremony presided over by the US president, Joe Biden, on the last day of the IX Summit of the Americas, held in the Californian capital.
“No nation should shoulder this responsibility alone,” Biden stressed.
Signatories and absentees
Twenty countries signed the text, including the United States, Mexico and four countries from which many of the undocumented migrants who try to reach US territory come: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Haiti.
It was also signed by most of the countries of transit and destination of many Venezuelan, Nicaraguan and Haitian migrants who have traveled the continent in recent years: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Belize, Panama, Canada, Jamaica and Barbados.
However, three countries of origin of many of the undocumented migrants who transit through the region did not sign the declaration: Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, which the US government decided not to invite to the Summit of the Americas because it considers that they are not democratic. .
The White House promoted the declaration to improve the way in which “responsibilities are shared” for irregular migratory flows, in a context of records in the arrival of undocumented immigrants at the southern border of the United States, an issue that generates political pressure for Biden at the internal level. .
Biden’s message at the summit’s signing ceremony was resounding: his priority is “stopping the dangerous and illegal ways in which people are migrating” in the region.
“Illegal migration is not acceptable, and we are going to secure our borders,” warned a president who has received criticism for keeping the so-called Title 42 standing, a measure protected by the pandemic by which the US automatically deports most of the undocumented immigrants who arrive at its southern border.
Although Biden announced this year his intention to lift that measure, a federal judge has forced him to keep it in force for now, and although that rule prevents most of those who arrive from seeking asylum, the flow has only increased, with a caravan than 15,000 people advancing this week through southern Mexico.
Bet on temporary visas
The signatory countries of the declaration committed themselves to “strengthen and expand migration routes through temporary work programs”, in addition to family reunification programs and the regularization of migrants, with some specific commitments.
Mexico will launch a new temporary work program to give opportunities to between “15,000 and 20,000 workers from Guatemala” each year, with the intention of expanding it in the medium term to also include Honduras and El Salvador.
In addition, Mexico will integrate 20,000 refugees into the formal labor market within the next three years, with the support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
“Mexico has increasingly become the leader in the region on these issues,” a senior US official, who requested anonymity, told reporters.
For its part, Canada reaffirmed that it plans to receive more than 50,000 agricultural workers from Mexico, Guatemala and the Caribbean this year; while Spain -an observer country- has agreed to “double” the number of legal channels for Honduran workers to participate in the Spanish circular migration programs.
The United States also committed to expanding its quota of refugees from the Americas to 20,000 for 2023 and 2024, with special priority for Haitians; and announced 314 million dollars in humanitarian aid for Venezuelans inside and outside their country.