The United States recognizes the great challenge of Panama and the region due to the situation of migrants

The situation of migrants who risk everything to reach North America is a “huge” challenge for Panama and the United States, and also for the countries of the continent, said the deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Population, Refugees and Migration of the Department of State, Marta Youth.

“It is a challenge, not only for Panama, not only for the United States, it is a global challenge (…) a challenge for the entire region,” she said to the network TVN Noticias Youth, who is in Panama on a visit that was not officially announced.

The undersecretary pointed out that because of this, the administration of the president, Joe Biden, has oriented to give this matter a “regional focus, of regional responsibility”.

He added that next week he will be in Lima, Peru, to attend a parallel ministerial meeting that will deal with migration and the “Declaration of Los Angeles”, within the framework of the 52 OAS General Assembly, whose approach is, he said, “to work together because it is a challenge, it is not just one country”.

“We have to work together, provide humanitarian assistance , provide access to international protection, and work together against the criminals who are taking advantage of the desperation of migrants”, said Youth.

In the Lima meeting, the implementation of the Declaration of Los Angeles, in which some twenty countries committed to curbing migratory flows.

The so-called “ Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection”, a kind of continental code of conduct on migration issues, was signed in an act presided over by President Biden, on the last day of the IX Summit of the Americas, held in the Californian capital in June of this year.

Youth recalled that the position of his country, expressed by Biden, is to “accept people who are fleeing from persecution and that they need help”.

In this sense, he advanced that Lima will discuss the need to “build legal channels so that people (migrants) can come without walking throughout the hemisphere, which they can arrive in a dignified way through a legal channel”.

“We in the United States are working on this matter, we are thinking of various innovative things so that (people) can arrive without making the trip like this, and other countries in the region are also working on legal channels ”, he assured.

I support Panama

Panama, a reception point for migrants in its way to North America, is among the countries in the region to which the United States has given significant aid to address this situation.

In 9 months of this year, a total of 165,322 migrants have crossed the vast jungle of Darién, with the purpose of reaching r to the United States, of these 14,723 are from Venezuela, 8,723 from Haiti, 4,322 of Cuba and 14, 297 from other countries, the Ministry detailed this Sunday on its social networks of Public Security of Panama.

This amount is above the historical figure of 133,726 of 2021.

Panama welcomes irregular travelers in migratory reception stations (ERM) located on the border with Colombia and Costa Rica, where they take their biometric data and receive food and medical attention, in a unique operation in the region that consumes millions of dollars annually, as has been said the Government.

The travelers, who cross the Darién jungle on foot on a journey of 165 miles suffer assaults, aggression it is sexual and many die, according to their own testimonies.