The White House announced Friday a commitment reached with Mexico to accept refugee resettlement referrals from qualified individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela who are in Mexico, according to a statement by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
The text indicates that the Legal Routes Initiative with Mexico, as it is known, comes after the “very productive meetings that took place earlier this week in Mexico between President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and a US delegation.”
“The United States is taking additional steps to expand access to safe, orderly services and legal migration pathways. Today we are announcing our full support for an international multi-use space that the Mexican government plans to establish in southern Mexico to offer new employment and shelter options to the most vulnerable people currently in Mexico. We also commit to accept refugee resettlement referrals from qualified people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who are already in Mexico,” the text indicated.
In the meetings that gave rise to the initiative presented today, the White House national security adviser, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, also participated on the US side.
The plan is based – adds the White House – on “a series of successful initiatives for legal pathways that President Joe Biden and President López Obrador agreed to present during the last year.”
It also has the objective of advancing the decision to cooperate bilaterally “to administer our shared border in a humane and orderly manner” and serves as “testimony of the strong and lasting ties of friendship and association” between both countries.
The initiative is also part of Biden’s policy to significantly expand legal channels to the United States, in line with the objectives of the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection.
“We encourage migrants to use these legal avenues instead of putting their lives in the hands of dangerous smugglers and traffickers. Pursuant to our laws, those who seek to enter the United States illegally will continue to face strong consequences, including deportation, possible criminal prosecution, and a bar on re-entry,” the White House statement concluded.
Source: VOA
