Kamala Harris urged Guatemala to work together to stop migration to the United States

“We know a lot of people don’t want to leave the house“And he does it because” they cannot satisfy their basic needs”. In his tour in Central America, the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, He called on Guatemala to work together to tackle the causes that drive migration to his country.

On his first international tour, Harris began the day with a meeting with the President of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, to whom he reminded the priority that the administration of Joe biden gives the region.

“I am in Guatemala to discuss and promote our common priorities, including the most important ones, like you [Giammattei] mentioned, is to tackle migration and from this region in particular “, said the North American vice president.

“It is in our collective interest to work together where we can find the opportunity to resolve long standing issues.Harris commented at the National Palace of Culture, the former seat of government in the center of the capital, where the meeting is taking place.

For the vice president, “most people don’t want to leave home, they don’t want to leave the place where their grandmother grew up, the place where they pray, the place where they speak their language and their culture is familiar ”.

Harris considered that, those who migrate, or “flee evil or simply cannot meet their basic needs by staying at homeThey cannot simply meet the needs they have to raise their children by staying at home. “

Therefore, he reiterated, it is important, as leaders, to give to people “a sense of hope, that help is on the way “, in a region hard hit by COVID-19, violence and poverty, situation which was aggravated in 2020 by the passage of two hurricanes.

“Hope does not exist by itself. It must be accompanied by relationships of trust, tangible results in terms of what we do as leaders to convince people that there is reason to be optimistic about their future.“He added.

For its part, Giammattei offered Harris “a country that wants to cooperate, that wants to join forces, a country of opportunities, always.”

“The construction of these opportunities” will prevent the migration “of those young people who want us” to go “And let’s create the conditions in Guatemala so that they can find hope here that they don’t have today.”

Giammattei estimated that the problems in his country are “product many years behind schedule ”. “We must create in the minds of the Guatemalans this possibility of generating the hope that this is where they must fight to build the country and not fight to risk their lives to go to other countries like the United States, ”he said.

During the bilateral meeting on Monday, Giammattei and a large part of his cabinet were present for Guatemala, including the Ministers of the Interior (Gendri Reyes), Defense (Juan Carlos Alemán) and External Relations (Pedro Brolo).

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris was accompanied by William popp, United States Ambassador to Guatemala; Nancy McEldowney, security assistant for the Government; Ricardo Zuniga, White House Special Envoy for the Northern Triangle of Central America, and Juan González, Special Assistant and Director of the Western Hemisphere for the Government, among others.

After the interview with Giammattei, Harris will hold meetings with community leaders in another headquarters south of the Guatemalan capital, and later he will speak with business leaders from investment Yes growth.

The Vice President’s tour is linked to Biden’s promise of a more “humane” immigration policy following a harsh approach from his predecessor, Donald Trump.

But Harris faces even more complex challenges than those faced by Biden when, as Barack Obama’s vice president, he was in charge of the same problem. So far this year alone, there have been more than 200,000 attempts by migrants from the region to enter the United States.

According to official figures, in the United States there are more than three million GuatemalansMost of them are in an irregular situation, and each year at least 300,000 people attempt to reach the undocumented North American nation in search of better living conditions.

With information from AFP and EFE

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