San jOse. – Although the United States agreed with Mexico, Guatemala i Honduras implement a military wall and police to detain irregular migrants, the Biden administration ran into resistance from area government authorities to unite the new migration policy of the White House with the attack on corruption in the North triangle of Central America.
Social sources in the area revealed that, after taking office on January 20, President Joe Biden notified the Triangle – Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador – that he had buried the attitude of his predecessor, Donald Trump, Of being complacent about corruption and, in return, only asking them to contain visa-free migrants traveling to the US.
“Biden is uncomfortable in the Triangle,” said Guatemalan sociologist Carmen Rosa de Leon, executive director of Guatemala’s (non-state) Institute for Education for Sustainable Development.
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“All three would want Trump to return and his logic is to make Biden fail. No doubt Biden is sleeping with the enemy,” De Leon told THE UNIVERSAL after joining non-governmental sectors of the isthmus this month in face-to-face or virtual appointments with White House emissaries to assess the migration landscape.
“We cannot think that these three governments are receiving with great joy the changes in the EU’s migration policy, now more based on human security and that the root of the problem is corruption, as members of the government raised. of Biden, “recount. In response to these questions, the governments of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras assured that they are working with the US to resolve migration difficulties.
Determined to prioritize restraint on migrants rather than corruption, Trump never pressured Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez for his alleged link to drug trafficking, granting 2019 special status to El Salvador in the migration mess and nor did he oppose the dissolution in 2019 of an instance against impunity and corruption in Guatemala.
“The root causes of human insecurity and irregular migration (…) include shortcomings in democratic governance, (…) corruption”; US Department of State.
Sources consulted by this newspaper indicated that Biden, of the Democratic Party, opted for the regional military and police agreement to show firmness in the face of the sharpening of the migration crisis on its southwestern border and reject the hostility of the Republican party.
Republicans blamed Biden that, after his rise to the presidency and in contrast to Trump and his anti-immigrant policy, unleashed an uncontrollable entry into the U.S. of migrants, especially Mexicans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Salvadorans, Cubans and Haitians, which is aggravated by the arrival of minors without company.
They deny agreement to strengthen borders
The EU announced earlier Monday that Mexico will maintain its deployment of troops on its southern border, while Guatemala and Honduras have agreed to strengthen their military and police presence at border crossings, to create a retaining wall for migrants. However, both Honduras and Guatemala denied having reached a recent agreement on the matter.
The Guatemalan government has clarified that the 1,500 troops alluded to by White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki have been deployed since January in the face of the arrival of caravans of migrants. The Honduran government said agreements to mobilize more military “do not exist.” And an EU official merely pointed out that the countries of the Northern Triangle have already “deployed personnel” to “meet this shared challenge.” [la migración]”, Without clarifying whether there was a recent agreement.
The truth is that Washington has put pressure on Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to make the fight against corruption a pillar of its plan to tackle the migratory phenomenon from its germ of socioeconomic marginalization and violence and insecurity with an investment of ‘about $ 4 trillion.
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battle
The US State Department yesterday announced an anti-corruption plan to empower civil society to “fight corruption” in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. ”“ The root causes of human insecurity and irregular migration resulting from the North Triangle includes shortcomings in democratic governance, criminal violence and endemic corruption. “
“Efforts” in Guatemala and Honduras to prosecute corrupt actors were “undermined” by the cessation of anti-corruption missions, “replacing them with national anti-impunity bodies that have limited powers and insufficient political support to tackle rampant corruption.” he added.
With 20,000 troops Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras seek to contain migrants.
The statement alluded to the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), founded in 2006 with the endorsement of the United Nations and which ceased in 2019 after uncovering emblematic acts of corruption since 2007.
Honduras dissolved in 2020 the Mission to Support Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH), created in 2016 under the auspices of the Organization of American States (OAS).
The International Commission Against Impunity in El Salvador (CICIES) It was born in 2019 in a Salvadoran government agreement with the OAS and operates with fragility.
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