United States Secretary of National Security Alejandro Mayorkas (l) and Minister of Public Safety of Panama Juan Manuel Pino (r) attend the Ministerial Conference on Migration and Protection in Panama City today. | Photo: EFE
Panama and the United States signed an agreement to improve management of irregular migration, part of an effort by the White House to outline a new joint roadmap with its “key partners” in response to the historic flows of migrants and refugees in the United States region “.
The so-called Letter of Understanding on Migration Management and Protection of Migrants was signed Tuesday by Panamanian Minister of Public Safety Juan Pino and US Embassy Charge d’Affaires Stewart Tuttle, the diplomatic mission reported Wednesday.
This agreement was signed as part of a regional ministerial meeting on migration and security that will end this Wednesday in the Panamanian capital with the participation of representatives from twenty countries on the continent, including US Secretary of State and National Security Secretary Antony Blinken and Alejandro Mayorkas and .
The MoU “sets out shared commitments to improve the management of irregular migration, scale up stabilization efforts to benefit host communities and displaced persons, and improve protection of migrants and their access to legal alternatives (…) to provide an alternative to irregular migration “Blinken said in a statement released by the US Embassy.
The agreement “reaffirms the mutual commitment to the principle of offering regional responses to respond to historic flows of migrants and refugees,” said Blinken, who hailed “Panama’s leadership in building a safer, more prosperous and more democratic continent.”
“We hope to continue working with Panama towards the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration Management and Migrant Protection at the Summit of the Americas, which will be held in the United States in June this year,” the Secretary of State added.
In mid-March, the United States and Costa Rica signed a similar agreement during a visit by Foreign Minister Mayorkas to the Central American border country with Panama.
The increasing entry of irregular migrants into Panama through the dangerous jungles of Darién on the border with Colombia is cementing Central America as a route for thousands of people from all over the world seeking the “American Dream” in the United States.
In 2021, more than 133,000 migrants crossed the jungle, a number more or less the number recorded for all of the previous decade, and in the first quarter of this year 2022 13,425 did so, more than double the 5,622 in the same period of the year Previous year, according to official Panamanian data.
“We continue to see unprecedented migration flows in the region,” the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) said Tuesday, warning that America faces “tremendous challenges to protect dignity and meet humanitarian needs.” Population.