US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that those who facilitate irregular migration will be sanctioned and announced $578 million in aid for Latin America. This migration is a key issue in the US election campaign, since 2.8 million migrants enter the US irregularly each year.
Blinken promised at a conference in Guatemala that these funds will go to partner countries and migrant-hosting communities to respond to urgent humanitarian needs. Additionally, he announced a new visa restriction policy aimed at people who facilitate irregular migration to the US, including charter flights arriving in Nicaragua.
Foreign ministers and other senior officials from around twenty countries participated in the conference. At the end, the Foreign Minister of Guatemala, Carlos Ramiro Martínez, recounted what was discussed, without announcing any specific measures. However, Biden's special assistant, Marcela Escobari, highlighted the financial aid announced by Blinken and the expansion of alliances to deter irregular immigration.
Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena stated that migration should be an option and not an obligation, and that the first priority is to address structural causes, such as poverty, inequality, climate change and violence.
Central America faces complications due to the hundreds of thousands of migrants, mostly Venezuelans, who travel across the isthmus to the United States, after crossing the Darién jungle on foot, on the border between Colombia and Panama. Nicaragua now serves as an air bridge with charter and commercial flights for Asian and African migrants seeking to avoid Darien.
The Undersecretary of Border Policy and Immigration of the US Department of Homeland Security, Blas Nuñez-Neto, indicated that there are alliances between drug trafficking gangs and groups that specialize in moving people. According to him, it is almost impossible to reach the US border without passing through the hands of cartels and drug traffickers.
In 2023, more than half a million migrants crossed the Darien jungle where criminal gangs operate that assault, rape and kill defenseless travelers. Migrants who cross the Darién on foot are exposed to human trafficking, theft of belongings and money, extortion, sexual violence, among other dangers.
Among the migrants arriving in the US there are also thousands of Central Americans who leave their countries to escape poverty, lack of employment, low wages and criminal violence.
