US

Guatemala Pushes Back On Immigration

Aldana Fourcade Contributor
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Guatemala’s president is demanding a price be paid by President Barack Obama in exchange for halting the wave of poor migrants heading to Texas, according to a local newspaper report.

President Otto Perez “announced that he will use this meeting with Biden to express his concern for the Guatemalans that have been in the United States since 2011,” according to the newspaper, El Periodico.

Perez wants the Guatemalans “be granted residency,” which is an upgrade form their current ‘Temporary Protected Status.’

Guatemalan officials have been pressing U.S. officials to protect the amnesty-like status for Guatemalans who moved to the United States following deadly mudslides in 2011, and a tropical storm and volcanic eruption in 2010.

The request will be made to Vice President Joe Biden while he visits Guatemala today to press Central American countries to stop the dangerous migration of their citizens to the United States.

U.S. officials expect more than 200,000 lower class Central Americans — both adults and youths — to cross the U.S. border by October, in hopes of receiving green cards and the right to live in the United States.

In his six-hour stay, Biden is to meet with Molina, Salvadorian President Salvador Sanchez Ceren, Mexican Secretary of the Interior Miguel Angel Osorio, and another top Honduran official.

Honduras’ president is in Brazil, at the World Cup.

The newspaper also quoted the country’s foreign minister, Fernando Carrera, as saying that “the TPS [deal] should say ‘From this date [2011] and prior, all [Guatemalan] persons [in the U.S.] have the hope of legalizing their situation and whoever leaves [Guatemala] at this moment will not have the possibility to receive immigration benefits.”