Foreign Secretary Alicia Bárcena travels to ministerial meeting on migration and protection in Guatemala

Foreign Secretary Alicia Bárcena travels to ministerial meeting on migration and protection in Guatemala

• Secretary Bárcena will give a progress report on the Mexican Model of Human Mobility and Mexico's commitments under the Los Angeles Declaration.
• She will hold bilateral meetings with the President of Guatemala, the U.S. Secretary of State and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Colombia.
• She will sign a memorandum of understanding on consular assistance and protection for migrants with Guatemala and Honduras.

On instructions from President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alicia Bárcena Ibarra will participate tomorrow in the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection Ministerial Meeting to be held in Guatemala City. The goal of the meeting is the regional coordination and humane management of migration flows. Secretary Bárcena will present the Mexican Model of Human Mobility and Mexico's progress on its commitments under the Declaration and the implementation roadmap.

The Declaration was adopted on June 10, 2022 at the 9th Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, California. It has been signed by 22 countries with the aim of jointly managing irregular migration in the region to ensure that it is orderly, safe, regular and humane.

The Declaration's implementation is based on three pillars: stability and assistance for communities; legal pathways for migration and protection; and humane migration management. Mexico heads the Committee on Labor Mobility and will present the studies done with the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on labor mobility pathways in the region.

Since the signing of the Los Angeles Declaration, the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar), in close collaboration with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), has integrated a total of 17,682 refugees into Mexico's formal labor market. In addition, Mexico will conduct a pilot labor mobility program for Guatemalan workers to bring them into the Mexican labor market, and Multiservice Centers for Integration and Development will soon be operating in Tapachula and Huixtla, Chiapas.

Foreign Secretary Bárcena will hold bilateral meetings with Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo de León, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Colombian Foreign Affairs Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo Urrutia. She will hold a trilateral meeting with Honduras and Guatemala to sign a Memorandum of Understanding on Consular Cooperation, Protection and Assistance for migrant communities.

Also attending the ministerial meeting will be representatives of the countries of the region that have signed the Declaration, international organizations such as UNHCR, ILO, IOM, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (IRCC), and financial institutions such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Andean Development Corporation (CAF).

The Mexican delegation accompanying Secretary Bárcena includes Chief Officer for North America Roberto Velasco Álvarez; Amexcid Executive Director Gloria Sandoval Salas; the Chief of Staff to Secretary Bárcena, Martín Borrego Llorente; Director General of Human Mobility and Development Arturo Rocha Hernández; Director General for Central America and the Caribbean Carlos Imanol Belausteguigoitia Reyes; and Director General of Communication José Manuel Gutiérrez Minera; as well as Mexico's ambassador to Guatemala, Romeo Ruiz Armento.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on behalf of Mexico, reiterates its commitment to addressing the structural causes of irregular migration and strengthening protection and assistance for migrants through regional cooperation.