The United States intends to achieve a regional agreement on immigration and asylum at the next Summit of the Americas to be held in Los Angeles.
By Maria Ortiz | La Opinion | APR. 8, 2022 | Photo by Craig Angerer
The Joe Biden Administration chose Los Angeles to host a summit of leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean that is a key part of the U.S. reach towards a region increasingly courted by American adversaries such as Russia and China.
The Summit of the Americas, which will take place in the week of June 6, will focus on the defense of democracy and human rights in the Western Hemisphere, as well as on addressing irregular migration, climate change and efforts to ensure equitable growth as the region emerges from the crisis of the Covid pandemic.
President Joe Biden proposed on Friday the creation of a regional migration pact as the main objective of the Summit of the Americas, which will bring together heads of state and government in June.
In a statement, the president stated that the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, political repression and corruption have generated "immigration and refugee flows unprecedented in the modern history of the region."
"As we approach the Summit of the Americas, our goal is to outline a new regional approach to improve the way we jointly manage migration in the region for the next decade," Biden said.
The president claimed that the migration crisis requires "coordinated regional efforts" to address migration, address its causes and combat human trafficking networks.
Under the slogan "Building a sustainable, resilient and equitable future," the summit will also address health security after the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, the transition to clean energy, access to digital technologies, equitable economic growth and the role of civil society and independent media, Biden said.
The IX Summit of the Americas, which will be held from June 6 to 10, will be the second organized by the United States after the original edition in Miami in 1994.
So far, eight ordinary summits have been held: Miami (1994), Santiago de Chile (1998), Québec (Canada, 2001), Mar del Plata (Argentina, 2005), Port of Spain (Trinidad and Tobago, 2009), Cartagena de Indias (Colombia, 2012), Panama (2015) and Lima (Peru, 2018).
However, only the summit held in Panama City in 2015 was attended by all the leaders of the 35 countries that make up the Organization of American States (OAS), which was also joined by Cuba.
