Leaders across the Americas, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, on Friday signed what US President Joe Biden called a “historic pledge” to ease the pressure of northward migration.
This agreement, the main achievement of the Summit of the Americas held in California, provides that Canada will 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 a Canadian pledge to welcome an additional 4,000 migrants from the region by 2028, as well as a pre-existing plan to bring in an additional 50,000 agricultural workers from Mexico, Guatemala and the Caribbean.
“Each of us makes commitments and recognizes the challenges we all share and the responsibilities that affect all of our nations,” Biden said as he stood on the stage with 19 other leaders.
He blamed the growing pressure from irregular immigration on the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, compounded by the war in Ukraine and what he called the “unrest” caused by autocracies in the region.
Colombia, he said, hosts millions of refugees from Venezuela, while up to 10% of Costa Rica’s population is made up of migrants — a problem he says requires a collective approach for the good. -being and health of the hemisphere.
“Our security is tied together in a way that I don’t think most people in my country fully understand, and maybe not in your country as well,” Biden said.
“Our common humanity demands that we take care of our neighbors by working together,” he added.
Canada’s new funding will go to programs aimed at improving integration and border management, protecting the rights of migrants and host communities, advancing gender equity and combating the smuggling of illegals.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly was asked Friday about the seemingly paltry number of new migrants Canada has agreed to welcome over the next six years. Canada is already doing a lot, she said.
“Migration is certainly an issue throughout the hemisphere, but we also know that we play our part every year in accepting one percent of our population as new immigrants,” Ms. Joly said.
“At the same time, we want to do it in a way that respects the system,” she added, noting that Canada and the United States continue to negotiate the terms of the Safe Third Country Agreement, which currently allows migrants to claim refugee status in Canada if they enter the country from the United States at unofficial crossing points.
The Los Angeles Declaration is based on four pillars: stability and support for communities, the expansion of legal pathways for migrants, a human approach to migration issues and coordinated emergency mobilization.
According to the United States, this plan aims to “mobilize the entire region around bold actions that will transform the approach used in managing migration in the Americas”.
This includes a host of commitments by Latin American and Caribbean states in a variety of areas ranging from economic stabilization, to humanitarian aid and the “regularization” of irregular immigrants in their host countries.
For example, Colombia has already regularized the status of 1.2 million Venezuelans and has pledged to do the same for 1.5 million other Venezuelan nationals in its territory by the end of the summer.
Unsurprisingly, the United States will have the most to do. In particular, they will pay US$25 million to support States implementing new regularization programs. They will also inject US$314 million into stabilization efforts and US$65 million into a pilot project to help agricultural workers.
The US president’s administration has also pledged to resettle 20,000 refugees from the Americas in the United States over the next two years, a rate three times higher than the norm, said the White House.
At the same time, the United States intends to vigorously attack human trafficking, including by deploying a major new campaign aimed at dismantling the networks in place in Latin America.
Also on Friday, Trudeau spoke with Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, who gave him a warm welcome as he met with the Congressional delegation to the Summit of the Americas.
“We can no longer imagine that we are islands or isolated from what is happening in the rest of the world — the pandemic has taught us that, climate change teaches us that,” Trudeau said.
“We all have a responsibility for each of us. »
The Prime Minister was also to hold bilateral meetings with the leaders of Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.
Trudeau met for an hour on Thursday with US President Joe Biden, who has agreed to visit Canada in the “coming months”, his first since becoming president amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 19.
Also on Thursday, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and U.S. Environmental Protection Secretary Jared Blumenfeld signed a new climate change cooperation framework that included moderate extensions to a similar 2019 agreement.
It advances policy and regulatory measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pollutants in both jurisdictions, as well as conservation measures and addressing the growing threat of wildfires.