Miami.
Every Honduran migrant in the United States supports an average of five people in their country, the Foundation said on Friday, September 15 in a call to president Joe Biden to grant migratory protection to a community that is the economic engine of one Honduras in crisis and “isolation.”
With this data extracted from the information base of Hondurans in the US that is being carried out by the September 15 Foundation, its president, Juan Flores, has highlighted the consequences that would have a massive return of migrants to their country if they can not continue in the northern nation. -americana.
“From non – formal statistics we know that there are over a million Hondurans without one migratory status“, Flowers pointed out in response to a question from Efe.
Relief for a Honduras in crisis
For these people it is for which this non-profit organization and also the Government of Honduras have requested a Temporary Protection Statute (TPS), independent of what currently protects thousands of Hondurans, which was extended until next October by the Administration of now former President Donald Trump.
In a statement read at the press conference, which was also attended by the vice president of the foundation, Maybelle Castell, and its director of Migration Affairs, Jack McGuire, President Biden is asked to “process the request for a new TPS for Hondurans sent by the Honduran authorities, through Chancellor Lisandro Rosales, on December 4, 2020”.
Rosales was in Washington this Thursday, where he met with Roberta Jacobson, the special assistant of the President Biden, And with the Minister of National Security, Juan González.
In an interview with Efe, the chancellor asked that the causes of the caravans of migrants leaving Central America be addressed, which, in his opinion, have a “political” purpose that aims to “destabilize” his country, in Mexico and even in the US
The request for a new TPS is based on the serious situation created last year by Hurricanes Eta and Iota, which, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC), Caused damage of about $ 2 billion. To this is added the pandemic of covid-19.
In Honduras, “the economy is broken and there is a humanitarian and political crisis,” Flores told Efe to highlight the “enormous relief” that the fact that migrants in USA they could regularize their situation.
This would drive away the ghost of a mass return, a situation that, according to the September 15 Foundation, “could lead to the creation and mobilization of many more caravans of migrants to this northern country.”
Maybelle Castle said that the foundation advocates “orderly migration”, but the Honduran government “is virtually expelling” the people of the country to him not to create conditions for work and opportunities.
Congress support
Flores recalled that two Hispanic Democratic congressmen, Albi Sires and Norma Torres, have written to President Biden to express his commitment to work with his administration to address the root causes of the migration of the so-called “northern triangle.” Central America and highlight the need for a new TPS.
Asked what they expect from Biden, Flowers said he has so far decided nothing on Honduras, a country he said is an ally and friend of the United States with which he has “a strong bilateral relationship.”
In his opinion, currently “there is no friendly relationship” and the September 15 Foundation he perceives that there is “silent isolation” internationally from Honduras, which also harms Hondurans who have had to emigrate.
“The ally is not a single person, it is not the president, but the people,” he stressed.
In early January, U.S. federal prosecutors ruled in a New York court that Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez protected a Honduran drug trafficker, Geovanny Fonts Ramirez, in exchange for large bribes, including using the army to facilitate their activities.
These accusations, denied by the Honduran government, Deepen those already raised during the trial for drug trafficking against the president’s brother, Juan Antonio Hernandez.
The Honduran engine
He also indicated that Hondurans have been the most affected by the “inhumane migration policies” of the previous administration, led by Donald Trump, and recalled that thousands of children of the same nationality who came to the border to apply. help “and ended up” imprisoned and separated from their parents. “
“Now we don’t know where his parents are,” he noted.
Throughout the press conference, the foundation, which is not only making a database of Hondurans in the U.S. but unifying and educating important communities in Texas, North Carolina and Louisiana, highlighted the important weight that migrants in the Honduran economy, but also the essential work they do in the US in the midst of the pandemic.
“We produce more than the import of coffee, than maquila, than shrimp and companies,” he stressed in reference to remittances, which according to the Central Bank of Honduras totaled $ 5,729.9 million, on 22 % of Gross Domestic Product.
Members of the foundation stressed that migrants could make a difference in the policy of Honduras voting for candidates who promote democracy and are willing to fight corruption effectively.
However, even though the Constitution gives them the right to choose and be elected, the authorities “perversely” deprive them, according to Flores, of being able to exercise it because they do not provide them with the new identity cards required to vote next. November.