The US, EU and Spain on Thursday pledged more than US$85 million in aid to Mexico and other Central American countries to offer alternatives to would-be migrants seeking a better life.
Washington has pledged US$57 million on top of US$310 million in humanitarian aid for the region announced in April by US Vice President Kamala Harris, a US government official said in Costa Rica ahead of a presidential summit.
“This money will be used to support efforts in building asylum systems, enabling governments to address the pressures of the migration itself,” Amy Pope, a senior advisor to US President Joe Biden on migration, told a gathering in San Jose.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“This is part of President Biden’s much comprehensive approach to migration, is not all about the United States border, it is about what is happening that causes people to feel that they do not have any other choice than to flee,” she said.
Pope spoke at an event in solidarity with forcibly displaced people preceding a summit of heads of state and government of member states of the Central American Integration System, and Spain.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told the event that his government would contribute US$7.6 million to the cause, while the EU pledged another US$22.5 million.
“We recognize that without a regional solution, we cannot address this problem,” Pope said.
Undocumented migration from Central America to the US has been on the increase since 2018, constituting a major issue for the Biden administration.
Detentions of undocumented migrants, many fleeing poverty or violence at home, hit a 15-year-high along the US-Mexico border in April, with nearly 180,000 people intercepted, US authorities said.
Biden is allowing unaccompanied minors to stay and be united with relatives living in the country.
The Republican opposition has accused Biden of creating a “crisis” on the country’s southern border.
Harris, on a visit to Mexico and Guatemala this week, said that countries must work together to address the root causes of the problem, but told would-be migrants “do not come” to the US.
“The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our borders... If you come to our border, you will be turned back,” she said.
Earlier on Thursday, Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said that the Biden administration was tempting migrants through what he called humanitarian messages.
“Because there they said: ‘We are going to encourage family unification.’ And the coyotes [smugglers] took children and adolescents to the US, and the border filled up, not just with people from Guatemala. A ton of people,” Giammattei told Fox News.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion