The Governments of Mexico, the United States and Guatemala agreed this Wednesday, February 28, to create a working group to trilaterally address immigration and border issues in the face of the growing irregular flow through the crossings between these nations. The agreement took place in Washington, at a meeting of foreign ministers, in which measures to stop irregular migration were analyzed, one of the main issues of this year's US elections, in which President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump They seek re-election.
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The United States, Mexico and Guatemala will create a trilateral working group focused on security, law enforcement and border infrastructure, as announced by the three nations this Wednesday, February 28, after a meeting in Washington.
The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, received his counterparts from Mexico, Alicia Bárcena, and Guatemala, Carlos Ramiro Martínez, to redouble coordination between the three countries on immigration matters.
“We are living in a historic moment because there are more displacements of people than at any other time in our history,” Blinken said at the beginning of the meeting.
The Secretary of State defended the need to ensure that migration is “safe, orderly and humane”, while addressing the “root causes” that lead millions of people to leave their countries.
For this reason, the authorities of Mexico, the United States and Guatemala committed to creating a trilateral working group and promoting cooperation police to improve security and control border trafficindicated the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Great and unprecedented meeting in Washington. First time we met trilaterally 🇲🇽🇬🇹🇺🇸. @SecBlinken @CRMartinezGT
We agreed to work on the structural causes of migration, exchange information and explore regular avenues of labor mobility to support the people. pic.twitter.com/rfukHKoMRW— Alicia Bárcena (@aliciabarcena) February 28, 2024
In a joint statement It was also announced that the police authorities of the countries involved will collaborate to detect security deficiencies on the borders they share, exchange information and develop operational plans. According to the document, they also committed to combating illegal human trafficking networks.
Mexico and Guatemala, key countries
For his part, Bárcena stressed that Mexico sees migrants “as people in labor mobility” who must be given opportunities and insisted on the need to promote the economic development of the region so that migration goes from being “an imposed condition to an option.”
Great and unprecedented meeting in Washington. First time we met trilaterally 🇲🇽🇬🇹🇺🇸. @SecBlinken @CRMartinezGT
We agreed to work on the structural causes of migration, exchange information and explore regular avenues of labor mobility to support the people. pic.twitter.com/rfukHKoMRW— Alicia Bárcena (@aliciabarcena) February 28, 2024
The Guatemalan minister recognized that the State is obliged “to generate and offer opportunities” so that people “do not migrate.” And in this sense, the United States has been trying to promote this measure for some time through private investments that encourage job creation in Central America.
In 2023, more than 2.4 million migrant apprehensions were recorded at the southern border of the United States, a record number. A third of them were Mexicans and more than 285,000 were Guatemalans, according to official data.
Immigration, the central block of the race to the White House
Two different measures on how to receive migrants in the United States clash completely.
On one side, Joe Biden's Administration has long sought to regularize millions of Mexicans who live on American soil, a request that the Republican wing of Congress has always rejected.
In another measure by the Democrat, he has asked the Lower House of Congress to have the power to prohibit people from requesting asylum when the border with Mexico is collapsed. And finally, tighten the standard of interviews in which it is evaluated whether there is a possibility that the person will be persecuted or tortured if they return to their country.
The other measures, even harsher, are those of the former president and also presidential candidate Donald Trump: mass deportations and giant detention centers. And Trump is no longer thinking about preventive measures, such as building a wall that crosses the country from east to west. Seeing that a concrete obstacle will not stop millions of people fleeing hunger, violence or corruption – among other reasons – to find a better life, the former president has promised that, if he returns to the Oval Office, he will lead carried out the “largest deportation operation” in US history.
Regarding deportation centers, one of Trump's main advisors on immigration matters, Stephen Miller, revealed that the idea involves establishing “large-scale” facilities where migrants would wait to be deported with continuously scheduled expulsion flights.
“When you tell families that if they come we are going to separate them, they don't come,” Donald Trump to CNN, in 2023.
He also recalled that any family that crosses the border will be separated: “When you tell families that if they come we will separate them, they don't come”, he told CNN last year. He already practiced the measure while he occupied the White House and promises to carry it out again.
Two solutions, therefore, to the same problem that is a central issue in the American debate: while some try to intercept and solve “the root” of migration, others opt to apply punitive measures.
Read alsoThe US, Guatemala and Mexico coordinate against the migration crisis
With EFE and local media
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