Leaders across America, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, signed on Friday what US President Joe Biden called a “historic commitment” to ease the pressure of migration to the north.
The agreement, the main achievement of the California Summit, obliges Canada to spend $ 26.9 million this year to slow the flow of migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection also includes Canada’s promise to welcome an additional 4,000 migrants from the region by 2028, as well as an existing plan to attract another 50,000 agricultural workers from Mexico, Guatemala and the Caribbean.
Canada is already a beacon of hope for migrants around the world, Trudeau said during his closing press conference when asked why a G7 country accepts so few additional newcomers.
Simply attracting more and more people does not solve the main problems of economic, social and government instability that force people to pack their bags and leave first, he said.
“It’s not enough to just say, ‘We’re just going to keep accepting people.’
“But we must also make a deliberate, focused effort to ensure that people do not feel compelled, that the only choice they have is to put themselves and their families at great risk in order to leave their communities in their country. .
Progressive initiatives
To that end, the government has announced an additional $ 118 million for progressive initiatives aimed at improving the lives of people already living in Latin America and the Caribbean.
This includes $ 67.9 million to promote gender equality; $ 31.5 million in health care and pandemic response; $ 17.3 million for democratic governance and $ 1.6 million for digital access and anti-disinformation measures.
“Each of us is signing commitments and acknowledging the challenges we all share and the responsibilities that affect all our nations,” Biden said earlier in the day, with 19 other leaders meeting behind him.
He blamed growing migratory pressures on the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, and what he called “the turmoil” caused by autocracies in the region.
WATCH The Prime Minister signs a climate agreement:
Trudeau meets with Biden, the governor of California at the America’s summit
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke with US President Joe Biden and signed a new climate agreement with California Gov. Gavin Newsom at the ninth American summit in Los Angeles.
Colombia, he said, is home to millions of Venezuelan refugees, while 10 percent of Costa Rica’s population is made up of migrants, a problem he says requires a collective approach to health and well-being in the hemisphere.
“Our security is connected in ways that I don’t think most people in my country fully understand, and maybe not in your country,” Biden said. “Our common humanity requires us to take care of our neighbors by working together.
Part of Canada’s $ 26.9 million commitment will focus on improving integration and border management, protecting migrants’ rights, gender equality measures and combating human trafficking.
4 key pillars
The Los Angeles Declaration is based on four key pillars, Biden said: stability and assistance to communities, broader legal migration routes, humane migration management and coordinated emergency response.
The White House said it was committed to “mobilizing the entire region for bold action that will transform our approach to migration management in North and South America.”
It includes commitments from a number of Latin American and Caribbean countries on everything from economic stabilization and humanitarian aid to “regulating” migrants living illegally in host countries.
Colombia, for example, has already legalized 1.2 million Venezuelan migrants and refugees and has agreed to do the same for another 1.5 million by the end of the summer.
Not surprisingly, the United States is having the worst effect, including $ 25 million to support countries implementing new legalization programs, $ 314 million for stabilization efforts and a $ 65 million pilot project to support agricultural workers.
The Biden administration is also committed to resettling 20,000 refugees from North and South America over the next two years, three times the current resettlement rate, the White House said.
In parallel with funding and resettlement efforts, the United States plans to tackle human smuggling operations, including a new campaign “unprecedented in scale” aimed at destroying and dismantling criminal smuggling companies in Latin America.
Add Comment