Colombia wants the administration of US President Joe Biden to grant temporary legal status to its citizens now living in the US, noting its own efforts to address regional migration by hosting 2 million Venezuelans who fled their homes.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro is committed to the “incredibly generous policies” of his predecessor, which includes temporary status for 1.8 million people who fled Venezuela, Colombian Ambassador to the US Luis Alberto Murillo Urrutia said.
Murillo Urrutia asked the US for help, saying that in addition to Venezuelans who stay and work, more than 80,000 migrants pass through Colombia each year on their way to other countries.
In a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Murillo Urrutia asked Biden to grant Colombians already in the US a form of temporary status called Deferred Enforced Departure.
“Migration is a regional issue that should be addressed under the principle of shared responsibility, strengthening regional cooperation to ensure migratory regularization,” Murillo Urrutia wrote in the letter dated Nov. 17 and released on Tuesday by Colombian officials.
That language echoes an agreement that Biden struck in June in Los Angeles among Western countries, including Colombia under then-president Ivan Duque.
The Los Angeles Declaration was billed as a road map for countries to host large numbers of migrants and refugees.
The White House and the US Department of Homeland Security had no immediate comment late on Tuesday on Colombia’s request.
It is unclear how many Colombians are living in the US without legal status.
The Migration Policy Institute in 2019 estimated that there were 171,000, but that was before tens of thousands arrived at the US border with Mexico this year, many of them released to pursue their cases in immigration courts.
US authorities have stopped Colombians 131,890 times at the Mexican border during the first 10 months of this year, including 17,195 times in October, a sharp increase that has made them one of the largest nationalities at the border.
Murillo Urritia said that there are nearly 2 million Colombians living in the US, without elaborating on their immigration status.
Many fled decades-old conflicts that he said the new government is committed to ending under 2016 peace accords.
Last week, the Colombian government and the National Liberation Army resumed peace talks after about four years.
“For more than 60 years, hundreds of thousands of Colombian citizens have been forced to leave the country because of the conflict seeking to rebuild their lives, many of the more recently arrived still remain vulnerable and unprotected in the United States,” Murillo Urrutia wrote.
He said that his government’s goal “is for our people to return to Colombia in a dignified manner if they choose to or adjust their immigration status in the United States if they have the legal avenues to do so.”
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