The foreign ministers of four Central American nations condemned a US Senate plan to build hundreds of kilometers of triple-layered fence on the US' southern border, saying it would not stop illegal immigration.
But although the top diplomats from Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Mexico all slammed the proposal, they said their only action would be to make more declarations and send diplomatic notes.
In a joint news conference in Mexico City late on Thursday, the five ministers said that building barriers is not the way to solve problems between neighboring nations.
"The position of Mexico and the other countries is that walls will not make a difference in terms of the solution to the migration problem," said Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez.
On Wednesday, the US Senate approved a proposal to build 595km of triple-layer fencing along parts of the 3,200km border separating the US and Mexico.
In the same session, the Senate agreed to give many illegal immigrants a shot at US citizenship.
Guatemalan Foreign Minister Jorge Briz said that a major immigration reform in the US is the only way to stop the human wave heading northward.
"All of us are looking for a comprehensive migratory regulation so that millions of Latin Americans can continue working in and supporting the US economy," Briz said.
Earlier on Thursday, Mexico's Foreign Relations Department sent a diplomatic note to the US State Department outlining the nation's concerns about the proposed barrier.
Honduran Foreign Minister Milton Jimenez said that he expected the five nations and other countries in South America and the Caribbean to issue a joint declaration on the matter soon.
The US House of Representatives approved plans to build hundreds more miles of fencing in December, sparking a wave of criticism from Latin American leaders, with Mexican President Vicente Fox comparing such a barrier to the Berlin Wall.
"Building walls, constructing barriers on the border does not offer an efficient solution in a relationship of friends, neighbors and partners," Fox said in the border city of Tijuana on Thursday. "We will go on defending the rights of our countrymen without rest or respite. With passion we will demand the full respect of their human rights."
On the border with Arizona, bedraggled migrants who had been turned back by the border patrol said that more fences would not keep them from crossing but only make smugglers charge more money for the trip.
"I had to leave my three children, walk for three days in the desert, and now I'm here with more debts than ever," said 40-year-old Edith Martinez from Oaxaca who walked back over the border bridge to the Mexican town of Nogales. "Now I have to work in the US to pay my debts from the trip."
In related news, US authorities shot dead on Thursday a person apparently trying to illegally cross into the US from Mexico, police said.
The victim was apparently in a car trying to drive past the San Ysidro border control post in southern California when border patrol officers fired.
RSS