Biden and Leaders Reach Agreement on Immigration Despite Slowing Attendance

Los Angeles (AFP) – President Joe Biden and other leaders from the Western Hemisphere are set to announce on Friday what is being billed as a roadmap for countries to host large numbers of immigrants and refugees.

The ‘Los Angeles Declaration’ is perhaps the greatest achievement of the Summit of the Americas, which has been undermined by controversies over Biden’s invitation list. The leaders of Mexico and several Central American countries sent senior diplomats instead after the United States had excluded Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

The set of principles to be announced Friday on the summit’s final day includes legal pathways to entry into countries, assistance to communities hardest hit by migration, humanitarian border management and coordinated emergency responses, according to a senior US official who briefed reporters ahead of an official announcement. .

It’s a scheme already largely followed by Colombia and Ecuador, whose right-leaning leaders were warmly welcomed at the top for welcoming many of the 6 million people who have left Venezuela. In the last years.

Last week, Ecuadorean President Guillermo Laso announced a temporary status for Venezuelans in his country, who are estimated to number around 500,000. He said in a panel discussion on Tuesday that his country was responding to the generosity of Spain and the United States for receiving large numbers of Ecuadoreans who fled more than two decades ago.

Colombian President Ivan Duque received a standing ovation in his appearance Thursday for describing how his government has granted temporary status to 1 million Venezuelans in the past 14 months and is processing another 800,000 applications.

“We did it out of conviction,” Duque told the Associated Press, saying he couldn’t be indifferent to Venezuelans who had lost their homes and livelihoods and were willing to struggle with approval ratings.

“They were invisible (in Colombia),” he said. “They couldn’t open bank accounts, they couldn’t work, they couldn’t get health care. They were practically a society without a future.”

While these measures are not universally popular, Venezuelans have integrated without a backlash.

“The two most dangerous phenomena are xenophobia and apathy, and I think we have managed to overcome both[in Colombia],” Duque said.

The United States has been the most popular destination for asylum seekers since 2017, posing a challenge that stunned Biden and his immediate predecessors, Donald Trump and Barack Obama.

But the United States is far from alone. Colombia and neighboring South American countries host millions of people who have fled Venezuela. Mexico submitted more than 130,000 asylum applications last year, many of them Haitians, a threefold increase from 2020. Many Nicaraguans fled to Costa Rica, while displaced Venezuelans account for about a sixth of the population of tiny Aruba.

US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mallorcas said Thursday that the summit declaration recognized the regional dimensions of immigration.

“It’s a hemisphere challenge,” he said in an interview, pointing to Colombia, Ecuador and Costa Rica for hosting large numbers of immigrants.

Jose Samaniego, UNHCR’s regional director for the Americas, said Colombia and Ecuador’s responses could not be replicated. Each country is different, and immigration from Central America is more complex than from Venezuela.

He said, “You don’t want to copy and paste, but there are good practices.”