Taking a United Stand Before Joe Biden

The moment it was announced that U.S. Vice President Joe Biden would visit Guatemala, the speculation began around the reason for this unexpected visit. The visit will bring together the president of El Salvador and representatives from Honduras and Mexico along with representatives from Guatemala to have a conversation with the important official from Washington.

It’s interesting to note that the visit will take place in Guatemala and not in El Salvador or Costa Rica, as has traditionally occurred. This is a clear sign that Guatemala is successfully repositioning itself with the U.S. capital.

Some aspects stand out in the issue of unaccompanied immigrant children. Thanks to the Guatemalan ambassador’s intervention, the press in Washington found out about first lady Rosa Leal de Pérez and her efforts to address this issue over the past two years. Last year she presented a strategy for handling the problem at the regional immigration conference. Afterward, she opened two shelters for returned children, one in the capital, Guatemala City, and another in Quetzaltenango.

In April she helped to create the National Commission for Attention to Children and Teen Migrants and has also assisted through the American organization Kids In Need of Defense or KIND. In addition, she has also organized free legal assistance for minors who manage to cross the border into the United States. All these actions have placed Guatemala at the forefront in addressing this problem.

It hurts us all to know that children from the Trifinio region put themselves at risk crossing from their country through Mexico and across the inhospitable border into the United States, completely unaccompanied. It’s not just the increase in solo minors traveling north that shocks us. It’s that they have lost all hope for a better future in our land. Searching for a solution to this dilemma should be Vice President Biden’s main concern. The leaders of the Trifinio countries [El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras] should bring up for discussion the fact that, owing to the enormous demand for drugs in the United States, a larger number of drug traffickers are passing through Central America, obliging the governments there to invest more in security than in development.

It has become clear that one of the factors that push these children to emigrate is the lack of opportunity. Young people who want to join the work force are not finding work, and this is where the United States can make a difference. If this immigration is a problem for them, they have the solution in their hands: Investments by American companies in the Trifinio region and more bilateral cooperation on social issues are some things that would contribute to drastically changing the situation.

If, as the press has stated, Vice President Biden is coming to address the matter from an immigration and humanitarian perspective, the problem is not going to go away. It can only be resolved by seriously tackling the issue of sustainable development. Hopefully the presidents of Guatemala and El Salvador and the delegates of the other countries will make the vice president of the United States see it this way.