Wednesday, January 8, 2020
U.S. and Mexico Moving Closer on Need to Develop Central America: Mexico
Reuters. January 7, 2020
MEXICO CITY — Mexico and the United States are increasingly in agreement on the need to lift economic development of Central America in order to curb illegal immigration from the region, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Tuesday.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has sought to enlist U.S. support for his vision of stemming migration by creating more jobs and opportunities in Central America in the face of skepticism from his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump.
In a speech to diplomats in Mexico City, Ebrard said when Lopez Obrador first put forward the idea in 2018, it looked "almost impossible" given Trump's tough stance on migrants.
"Today the positions are getting closer regarding this development initiative," Ebrard said.
The minister noted that the U.S. government would soon give its view on plans to roll out more investment in Central America, which is home to the bulk of migrants caught trying to cross illegally into the United States from Mexico.
Ebrard reiterated that his government was pushing the United States to help reduce the flow of arms entering Mexico illegally, which increased gang violence and social unrest.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr would visit Mexico next week to hold more discussions on security, Ebrard said.
Mexico Upset by US Plan to Send Mexicans to Guatemala
AP. January 7, 2020
MEXICO CITY — As the United States moved aggressively over the past year to sharply reduce the number of asylum seekers arriving at its southwest border, Mexicans were spared. But now Mexico is expressing its displeasure at U.S. plans to send Mexican asylum seekers some 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) south to Guatemala.
Late Monday night, Mexico's Foreign Affairs ministry said that it disagreed with the U.S. measure and estimated it could affect 900 Mexicans next month.
“The Mexican government, together with state and local authorities, will work to offer better options to Mexicans who could be affected,” the statement said.
Mexico's mild response could reflect a lack of legal options challenging the measure.
“To date, this government in Mexico has not shown it’s going to play very hardball with the Trump administration,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, director of immigration and cross-border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.
Mexico could wield diplomatic leverage, perhaps by threatening to pull back on willingness to let asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for court hearings in the U.S., said Brown, a former Department of Homeland Security official.
The U.S. had already substantially reduced the number of asylum seekers arriving at its border last year through a series of measures aimed at making it a less attractive option. They mostly came from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
The principal measure was the so-called “Remain in Mexico” program that sent non-Mexican asylum seekers back to Mexico to await their asylum cases. The program has been criticized for stranding people already at risk in dangerous border cities with few resources to support themselves for an unknown period of time. More than 55,000 asylum seekers have been sent back to wait in Mexico.
Mexicans were not included in that program because asylum seekers can't be returned to the country they are fleeing while their cases are pending. If they lose in court they can be sent back. U.S. immigration judges rendered decisions on 948 Mexican asylum cases in October, the latest data available from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Of those 831, or 88%, were denials.
The policy also didn’t include migrants who did not speak Spanish, like those who came from Africa through the U.S.-Mexico border, but that may also be changing, according to U.S. Homeland Security officials.
Through a series of bilateral agreements reached with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador last year, the U.S. signaled its intention to send asylum seekers back to those countries under the argument that migrants crossing their territory en route to the U.S. should have requested asylum there first.
The U.S. began sending some non-Guatemalan asylum seekers to Guatemala late last year and could begin to do the same soon in Honduras and El Salvador.
On Dec. 19, Enrique Degenhart, Guatemala's interior minister, said that because the bilateral agreement with the U.S. was producing such good results, the two countries were discussing expanding it to asylum seekers from other nationalities.
“The explanation that the United States gave us is that because of this implementation the criminal structures changed their modus operandi of taking mostly citizens of the Northern Triangle to (instead) begin operating with Mexican family units,” Degenhart said. “The United States authorities told us that not surprisingly the number of protection applications from Mexican citizens had shot up.”
In recent days, guidance was sent to U.S. asylum officials that said Mexicans would now be included. It is unclear if Guatemala has the capacity to process large numbers of people. Guatemalan officials referred questions to Degenhart's earlier comments.
Mexicans are easily returned over the border if they are caught crossing illegally and do not claim asylum, unlike other nationalities which undergo a longer more extensive legal process to be returned.
The plan to send Mexican asylum seekers to Guatemala was initially meant for El Paso but would include the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas as well.
“Certain Mexicans seeking humanitarian protections in the United States may now be eligible to be transferred to Guatemala and given the opportunity to seek protection there, under the terms of the Guatemala Asylum Cooperative Agreement,” according to a Homeland Security statement.
Eunice Rendon, coordinator of Agenda Migrante, a coalition of migrant advocacy groups in Mexico and the U.S. that helps organize legal defense, said during trips to the U.S. border late last year she heard of cases where U.S. authorities tried to make Mexican asylum seekers wait in Mexico saying there wasn't space.
But the Guatemala plan would be far beyond that and she hoped the Mexican government would turn to international bodies in making its case “for the violation of due process of the asylum seekers.”
“They don't even pass through Guatemala,” she said. “It's sending them to another country.”
Brown, the former Homeland Security official, pointed to a section of U.S. immigration law that allows the government to send people to other countries if it is “impractical, inadvisable or impossible” to send them back to their own countries. The U.S. has used that authority in individual cases — for example, to send Vietnamese to other countries when their own government refuses to take back its own people — but never on broad scale for asylum-seekers.
The bilateral agreement with Guatemala provides additional legal foundation for the U.S. to send asylum-seekers to the Central American nation, Brown said.
Mexico Hosts CELAC Summit And Assumes Pro Tempore Presidency
TeleSUR. January 7, 2020
Mexico would be assuming the pro tempore presidency of CELAC at an official ceremony, where the proposal for this year's work will be presented.
After eight years of its creation, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) remains the only mechanism for political dialogue and consultation that permanently brings together the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Tomorrow Mexico will be assuming the pro tempore presidency of CELAC, following the coup against Bolivian President Evo Morales, who was in office until Nov. 12.
The opening ceremony will take place at the National Palace in Mexico City and will be attended by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The work of the Plenary Session of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs will be carried out in the Spanish-American Hall of the Ministry of Public Education (SEP).
Mexico will take over the pro tempore presidency of #CELAC2020 in an official ceremony, where it will present the work proposal for this year.
Celac is an intergovernmental mechanism for dialogue and political consultation established in 2011 in Venezuela, to promote the economic, social and cultural development of the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Currently, it groups 17% of the UN members, has a population of approximately 624 million people, occupies 15% of the planet's territory and generates 7.1% of the world's GDP.
It also has a great energy potential due to its oil and gas reserves and capacities in hydroelectric areas, it has coasts in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and an important step in world transport.
Celac's main achievement to date is to have advanced in the gradual process of integration of the region, balancing the political, economic, social and cultural diversity of the 624 million inhabitants of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Since its constitution, the 33 countries have signed 164 bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements.
In a recent meeting with ambassadors from Latin America and the Caribbean, Mexico's foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, spoke about the challenges we face as a region and discussed the proposals Mexico has worked on for the pro tempore presidency during 2020.
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