Twenty countries launched, on Friday, a US-led partnership related to immigration in Latin America, at the conclusion of the “Summit of the Americas”, which witnessed more disagreements than concrete declarations.
US President Joe Biden said Friday that “no country should be left” alone in the face of the growing population movements of thousands of people trying to cross the border between Mexico and the United States to escape the misery and insecurity in their countries.
Biden, who stood alongside the other leaders who signed the “Los Angeles Declaration”, stressed that “safe” and “legal” immigration benefits economic development, stressing at the same time the need to “protect borders” from illegal entry operations, provided that this is done in a manner “Humanitarian”.
Biden wants to consolidate the principle of “shared responsibility” between countries on the issue of immigration, which provokes constant attacks on him by the American right.
The Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles concluded with Biden’s promises to do more on immigration, and a joint declaration on immigration that formalized largely existing arrangements, rather than opening new horizons.
The Los Angeles Declaration covers various commitments, or reminders of previous commitments, in terms of receiving immigrants and regulating their flows, but it does not have any binding dimension.
The declaration called for ensuring the “safety and dignity of all migrants”, as well as for more joint action by law enforcement and intelligence agencies to combat the sharp rise in illegal immigration.
The declaration published by the White House was signed by Argentina, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, the United States, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.
“We need to stop the dangerous and illegal ways that people migrate,” Biden said, alongside regional leaders. “Illegal immigration is not acceptable and we will secure our borders, including through innovative and coordinated measures with our regional partners,” he added.
The effort made during the summit was praised by Mexico, an important partner of the United States in the fight once morest immigration due to the 3,145-kilometre common border between the two countries, although Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador boycotted the summit.
The Mexican president objected to the US decision not to invite Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua due to US “reservations” regarding democracy and human rights in these three countries.
Other leaders directed the same verbal blame to the US president during a plenary session Thursday, once morest the background of not inviting the leaders of the three countries.
This Summit of the Americas is supposed to re-launch the United States’ dialogue with a region that has not yet been at the center of the Biden administration’s diplomatic interests.
“Some of the outcomes of the summit are very positive from our point of view,” Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said, referring specifically to the “regional approach to immigration” and Biden’s calls for economic cooperation.
Extreme poverty, increasing violence, and natural disasters exacerbated by climate change have led to a sharp rise in the number of people seeking to reach the United States from Central America and Haiti.
The United States will receive 20,000 refugees from Latin America in 2023 and 2024, three times the number of refugees received this year, according to the White House.
On Friday, the White House announced $314 million in humanitarian aid, especially for Venezuelan immigrants.
But the summit was also marked to a large extent by differences due to Biden’s refusal to invite the leaders of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to participate in it.
The issue of immigration is very politically sensitive for Biden.
The Republican opposition accuses him of being lax as thousands of people try to cross the southern border of the United States every day while on the left he is being criticized for not implementing, as promised, a more humane immigration policy than his predecessor Donald Trump.
