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Tag: migration
Guatemala’s president says U.S. should invest more to deter migration
Washington — Nearly three years ago, Vice President Kamala Harris stood alongside the then-president of Guatemala in his palace and delivered a message to would-be migrants: “Do not come” to the United States.
Her pleas didn’t work. Since June 2021, when Harris made those remarks, U.S. officials have tallied 709,305 encounters with migrants from Guatemala along the southern border, according to government data. More than 2 million migrants of all nationalities are expected to be apprehended along the border by the end of this fiscal year in September, which would be the third straight year of sustained foot traffic across the span.
Asked this week whether migrants have heeded Harris’ request from three years ago, Guatemala’s new president, Bernardo Arévalo, shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well, I don’t know. You do the numbers.”
Arévalo, who took office in January, came to Washington this week to meet with President Biden and Harris as the White House hopes to demonstrate progress on addressing border security and immigration, issues that remain top voter concerns.
He told CBS News the president was “enchanting” and “very warm” in a brief Oval Office exchange captured by White House photographers. But in longer meetings with Harris, Arévalo said he told her Guatemala needs more U.S. economic investment — not just taxpayer-funded American relief — in order to encourage people to stay put.
“Cooperation is not sending money. Cooperation can be by creating conditions in which we can invite you to invest in Guatemala and establish factories, work that can begin to produce and create jobs. That’s fundamentally what we are most interested in,” he told CBS News.
Ron Sachs/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images
“We have to work to allow people, what we call, ‘The right to stay.’ People have a right to remain in their places. People need to find opportunities,” Arévalo added.
Mr. Biden tasked Harris with addressing the “root causes” of migration early in their administration as the number of illegal border crossings spiked after four years of hardline border security policy under former President Donald Trump. But the Biden administration is now anticipating another busy spring along the U.S.-Mexico border, and officials tell CBS News the president is still considering taking executive action to curb the crossings if Congress fails to enact a bipartisan plan negotiated by senators last year.
As she personally wades back into the politically tricky issue, Harris on Monday announced another $170 million in economic development and security assistance for Guatemala. Arévalo welcomed the investments as a long-term solution to preventing his country’s citizens from leaving and signaled he’d prefer to see that kind of cooperation continue. But he also did not discount the possibility of working with a second Trump administration.
“We are looking forward to working with whoever wins in the next election to support and work so that our citizens that are residents in the United States enjoy full rights,” Arévalo said.
Asked whether he thought Trump’s preference for border walls works, he said, “I think that history shows they don’t. What we need to look for is integrated solutions to a problem that is far more complex than just putting a wall to try to contain.”
“Corruption is the most urgent problem”
Arévalo, 65, is a former diplomat and sociologist and the son of the late former Guatemalan president Juan José Arévalo, who was the country’s first democratically elected president from 1945 to 1951.
The younger Arévalo took office in January after running an underdog campaign on an anti-corruption platform and defeating several better-known, better-funded opponents backed by the country’s political and economic elite. His victory effectively put an end to the country’s long standing conservative political establishment. But rivals who control the country’s judiciary continue to try prosecuting him and his political party, accusing them of rigging the results of last year’s elections — accusations he strongly disputes.
“We believe that corruption is the most urgent problem,” Arévalo told CBS News. “But the most important problem is development. But if we do not fight corruption, we are not going to be able to get the development that we need so that people can flourish and stay.”
As he tries to revamp Guatemala’s government and restore democratic norms, Arévalo said he supports the release of journalist José Rubén Zamora, who was sentenced to six years in prison in 2023 on money laundering charges under the former President Alejandro Giammattei’s administration.
Zamora’s newspaper, “El Periódico,” published countless stories about corruption within the Giammattei administration. It was forced to shut down after he was detained, due to a lack of resources and its journalists fleeing the country for fear of prosecution. Zamora’s case has earned international attention and condemnation from international journalists’ rights groups.
“We would hope for him to be released tomorrow,” Arévalo said of Zamora.
On his Inauguration Day, Arévalo said he sent the head of the country’s prison system to “transform” the torturous conditions under which Zamora was being held. While the president supports the journalist’s liberation, Arévalo could not specify a release date for the detained journalist because does not control Guatemala’s judiciary under the Guatemalan Constitution.
“We know that the accusations are just not serious,” he said. “But we cannot interfere with the Court of Justice, so we don’t know.”
Ed O’Keefe
Only a hostile environment can stop illegal migration
Those who believed that Brexit would see the UK “take back control” continue to look in despair as the country’s borders remain porous and insecure. The ongoing small-boats emergency on the English south coast has made a complete mockery of our so-called national sovereignty over immigration and asylum policy.
The asylum system has been reduced to a survival-of-the-fittest arrangement, with able-bodied males being ferried to the UK on small boats through the English Channel. Some of these illegal entrants are in turn relocated to the more disadvantaged parts of the country. At times, they subsequently abscond from under-regulated forms of accommodation without a trace.
Some on the contemporary British Left are open-border evangelists who believe that the UK should be an international outpost that serves the central purpose of maximising global welfare. From a philosophical perspective, the very concept of the nation state with meaningful borders is an enemy to their holy cause, which might be called global redistributive justice. There is no serious consideration for the fact that this scale of illegal migration fuels labour exploitation, undermines social cohesion and poses a threat to public order.
While the Government has sought to shore up our borders through the Illegal Migration Act, there needs to be a truly national effort to dismantle people-smuggling networks, as well as punishing exploitative bosses who employ illegal migrants and unscrupulous landlords who house them in overcrowded properties. There needs to be a fostering of a genuinely hostile environment for those who are contributing towards the UK’s illegal immigration crisis.
As it stands, an individual may be sent to prison for five years and pay a large fine if that person is found guilty of employing someone who he/she knew or had “reasonable cause to believe” did not have the right to work in the UK. This fine can be up to £20,000 per illegal worker. But the Government should look to introduce much stronger penalties for those who fail to comply with the law on right-to-work checks and knowingly employ illegal migrants while making handsome profits by paying them a pittance. This form of labour exploitation undermines the integrity of the British market economy – one where social responsibility is an integral part of mainstream business activity.
Moreover, like the case of employing illegal workers, one can be sent to jail for 5 years or receive a fine for renting property (in England) to someone who he/she knew or had “reasonable cause to believe” did not have the right to rent in the UK. The amount for a first-time penalty for a lodger in a private household is a meagre £80 (which rises to £1,000 for tenants in rented accommodation). Both the potential prison sentences and penalties for such misdemeanours should be toughened as a matter of urgency. This is not “anti-landlord” – it is about tackling criminal activity in the rental market.
By empowering its law-enforcement authorities and introducing stiffer punishments, the UK can create a truly hostile environment for those who benefit from the illegal immigration ecosystem, especially people-smuggling networks, exploitative bosses, and crooked landlords.
Dr Rakib Ehsan is the author of Beyond Grievance
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UN calls for regional solutions to curb record migration through Darien Gap
PANAMA CITY (Reuters) – The United Nations on Wednesday called on countries to join efforts to contain the record-high traffic of U.S.-bound migrants and refugees crossing the treacherous jungle region linking Panama and Colombia, known as the Darien Gap.
Official data shows 248,901 people crossed the dangerous stretch between January and July, surpassing the record high seen for all of 2022.
The “dramatic” numbers show a need for joint efforts to address the root causes of forced displacement and irregular migration, the UN refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a statement.
Expanding routes to ensure people can obtain regular immigration status is also necessary, it added.
“The perilous journey through the Darien jungle is not only a testament to the desperation and determination of those seeking a better life, but a grim reminder of the urgency of updating our migration systems,” said IOM Director Michele Klein Solomon.
Migrants crossing the Darien Gap are mostly from Venezuela, while Haitians and Ecuadorians make up the next two largest groups.
Crossings through the jungle are expected to surpass 400,000 this year, according to the UN, well up from nearly 250,000 in 2022.
(Reporting by Elida Moreno. Editing by Gerry Doyle)