Politics

US to propose ‘more humane’ migration plan at Summit of the Americas

Washington, Nov 19 (EFE).- The United States would promote a new regional policy on flows of migration with “more humane border management” for all American and Caribbean countries at the ninth Summit of the Americas hosted by the US in mid-2022.A senior US official told this in an interview with EFE ahead of the North American Leaders’ Summit of President Joe Biden (US), President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Mexico), and Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The official said the US at the NALS proposed to work with all regional leaders for a “new, bolder framework to manage migration” to project the idea at the Summit of the Americas next summer.

The official said the “regional pact on migration and protection” would recognize “historical numbers” of people who migrate for different reasons in the continent.

“We believe that in the next decade we will continue to experience different displacement phenomena, and we want to take advantage of this moment” to lay the foundations of how to handle them, the source said.

“We have to provide more support to the communities that are hosting large numbers of migrants and refugees,” the official told EFE over the telephone.

He recalled that in South America, many countries were welcoming millions of Venezuelans, Haitians, and Cubans and that now “secondary movements are beginning to occur as a result” of the pandemic.

So it was necessary to consider “how to support” those host countries, the official said.

The US also wants to explore the possibility of framing “legal avenues in a coordinated way.”

The plan would cover both in the form of refugee programs and temporary work visas or even the Temporary Protection Statute that Colombia has granted to Venezuelans, which can be an example for other countries, he said.

The White House would shape up the idea in “six or seven months” before presenting it at the Summit of the Americas, which will bring together the leaders of the continent.

“But we are aware that when a whole new framework is designed to manage migratory and refugee flows, it may take longer than that,” admitted the source, recognizing that the initiative may not be fully ready when the summit begins.

The new strategy will not include new “access restrictions” for migrants to the US by land from Mexico, the official said, but it would seek to set guidelines for “more humane border management.”

That will include ideas like “expanding voluntary (migrant) returns and return and reintegration programs,” so that “people do not have to cross multiple countries to find safety.” EFE

llb/ssk

Related Articles

Back to top button