12 LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES TO MEET IN MEXICO TO ADDRESS MIGRATION CRISIS
On October 22 there will be a Summit of Latin American Presidents in Mexico, which will address the migration crisis in the region.
Mexican President André Manuel López Obrador invited 11 presidents to meet in Palenque, in the state of Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala.
Apart from the host, the presidents of Belize, Johnny Briceño; Colombia, Gustavo Petro; Costa Rica, Rodrigo Chaves; Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel; Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso; El Salvador, Nayib Bukele; Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei; Haiti, Ariel Henry; Honduras, Xiomara Castro; Panama, Laurentino Cortizo; and Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, are expected to attend.
López Obrador said that the presidents committed to attend or send their foreign ministers. On Monday, October 9, 2023, the Mexican president said that he only needed to confirm the presence of Petro and Giammattei.
These are leaders of different political affiliations, who have in common the fact that they are countries of origin or transit countries for migrants who want to reach the United States in an irregular manner.
At the press conference where he announced the meeting, López Obrador indicated that between August and September irregular migration at the U.S.-Mexico border increased by 20%.
According to the Spanish newspaper El País, the President stated that “while displacement has decreased among Mexicans, the presence of people of other nationalities, especially from Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia, has increased drastically”.
It is estimated that up to 6,000 migrants arrive daily at Mexico’s border with Central America, while up to 10,000 arrive at the U.S. border.
The general idea of the meeting is to address the causes that cause people to leave their countries. “It is like an agreement of good neighborliness against poverty, neighborliness for the welfare of our peoples, to seek that, with mutual help, we can address the problem of migration. We are very hurt by what is happening with migrants,” said López Obrador, according to El País.
“The question is,” said the President, “what do we do to provide care in the towns of origin to those who decide to leave because of necessity, how do we guarantee that there will be work, that there will be welfare in the towns of our countries to temper, to reduce the migratory flow, and not only be thinking about coercive measures, checkpoints, walls, and militarizing the borders?
