The United States promotes refugee resettlement programs and labor mobility possibilities for migrants in the Americas, initiatives that it hopes to translate into a new framework for the collective management of migration in the region, a White House official announced on Friday.
“Our goal is to sign a Regional Declaration on Migration in June in Los Angeles, when the United States will host the Summit of the Americas,” Katie Tobin, top immigration adviser to President Joe Biden, told reporters.
“We will work with governments and other key stakeholders in the coming months to develop this framework,” he added, noting that Colombia, Canada and Mexico have already pledged their support.
Biden called for a new regional migration agreement on Thursday when he received his Colombian counterpart, Iván Duque, whom he praised for welcoming some 1.8 million Venezuelans and granting them temporary protection status to facilitate their social integration.
According to Biden, the new approach must “drastically expand” access to resettlement and other legal avenues for migration, as well as “aggressively pursue” human traffickers.
“As President Biden said, hemispheric migration challenges cannot be solved by a single nation, or on a single border. We have to work together,” Tobin said.
He explained that one way to strengthen responsibility sharing and reduce irregular migration is to offer “safer and more humane pathways” through the resettlement of refugees.
“We will look to see how the United States and other governments can provide a conduit for Venezuelan refugees through formal resettlement programs,” the US official said.
Venezuela, governed by the socialist Nicolás Maduro since 2013, is experiencing a political, social and economic crisis that has forced more than 6 million people to leave the country in recent years, most of them to neighboring countries. Colombia received the largest share, followed by Peru (1.2 million), Ecuador (508,000) and Chile (448,000), according to the UN.
Labor mobility through legal channels is another aspect to consider, Tobin said, noting that the shortage of labor in countries such as the United States, but also Canada and Mexico, can be an opportunity for those who leave their country to find work.
“We will seek to engage other governments in the region to see how we can work together to create formal channels for opportunities for temporary workers,” he said.
Tobin stressed that the region of the Americas is facing a historic migration crisis, with an estimated 7 million people displaced between Venezuela and other populations.
The United States recorded that 1.7 million people entered illegally from Mexico between October 2020 and last September from Mexico, an all-time record. Most came from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.
