Guatemala
San José (AFP) - The opening of US migrant processing centers in Colombia, Costa Rica and Guatemala ensures that more than ever these countries will become waiting rooms for asylum seekers wanting American visas. The "Safe Mobility" initiative rolled out by Washington in Central America -- the main corridor for tens of thousands hoping to reach the United States without visas -- attempts to expand legal pathways for asylum seekers while keeping them in countries farther from the US border. The new program started May 11 with the end of Title 42, which had allowed US authorities to return migr...
AFP
Guatemala City (AFP) - An investigative newspaper in Guatemala that published reports on government corruption announced on Friday it was closing due to "criminal persecution and economic pressure." In March, a judge opened an investigation into journalists and columnists working for El Periodico. The newspaper's founder, Jose Ruben Zamora, who has won several international press awards for his paper's investigative journalism, was arrested last year and accused of money laundering and blackmail. In March, a judge also opened a criminal proceeding against Zamora for conspiracy to obstruct just...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - The United States on Thursday revamped its policy on migrants by setting up processing centers overseas and toughening penalties for unlawful entry, anticipating a surge of arrivals as Covid-era rules expire next month. President Joe Biden's administration, which has struggled to find a balance on an issue that has galvanized its Republican rivals, said it expected a sharp increase in the number of Latin American migrants able to emigrate through legal channels. Colombia and Guatemala agreed to set up centers to review the applications of migrants -- who will be denied entr...
AFP
New York (AFP) - Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen arrived in New York Wednesday for a visit that has triggered threats of reprisal by China if she meets with House speaker Kevin McCarthy -- and US warnings for Beijing not to overreact. Tsai is stopping over in the United States en route to Central America, where she will meet with the leaders of Guatemala and Belize to shore up ties with those diplomatic allies. On her way back to Taiwan she will stop in California, where McCarthy had said he would meet her. China claims the democratic island as part of its territory to be retaken one day and,...
AFP
Taipei (AFP) - Taiwan's president will visit diplomatic allies Guatemala and Belize next week while also making stopovers in the United States, the island's foreign ministry said Tuesday, as it aims to shore up ties in Latin America. Tsai Ing-wen will depart Taiwan on March 29 for the 10-day trip, stopping in New York and Los Angeles while en route to and from the central American countries, according to the ministry. Belize and Guatemala are two of just 14 countries that officially recognise Taiwan over China, and Tsai's trip comes after Honduras said earlier this month that it would be switc...
AFP
Guatemala City (AFP) - Guatemala's ex-president Alvaro Colom, who was named in a US list of Central American officials accused of corruption, died on Monday at the age of 71, one of his former ministers said. Colom's cause of death has not been specified but he was undergoing treatment for esophageal cancer. "President Alvaro Colom has passed away. I regret his passing and join in prayer for his eternal rest," former interior minister Carlos Menocal said on Twitter. "Working and learning alongside him has been a privilege. I understood and got to know Guatemala thanks to him. A just man, who d...
AFP
Guatemala City (AFP) - The son of Panama's ex-president Ricardo Martinelli was extradited Monday from Guatemala, where he was detained, to the United States to face charges of corruption involving Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, officials said. Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares was flown out of Guatemala City, where he had been held in a military prison, on a private jet bound for New York. Martinelli and his brother Ricardo Alberto were arrested at Guatemala Airport in 2020, at Washington's request, as they sought to board a flight to Panama. Both are wanted by the American justice ...
AFP
El Ceibo (Guatemala) (AFP) - Haydi Consuelo thought she had arrived in the promised land when she walked across the US-Mexico border into Texas with her two-year-old son and other Central American migrants. She thought she would be given shelter but instead she was put on an airplane and sent back to Mexico, where she was shepherded onto a bus and driven to Guatemala without ever passing through a migration check point. "It was a trick because we were given the impression we would be able to pass. And, suddenly ... they put us in airplanes and ... we were deported," said Consuelo, 23, from the...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - President Joe Biden's administration on Tuesday broadened the range of legal guardians who can apply to care for migrant children, in a new step to address an influx of young Central Americans seeking safety in the United States. The so-called Central American Minors program was set up by Biden in 2014 when he was vice president to allow parents legally in the United States to claim children who came alone, helping them resettle with the benefit of family. Former president Donald Trump, who ran on strident attacks on immigration, terminated the program but it was restored sh...
AFP
Mexico City (AFP) - US Vice President Kamala Harris said Tuesday that tackling the root causes of migration would take time, vowing to visit the US-Mexican border herself to see the situation firsthand. Harris, on her first trip abroad as President Joe Biden's deputy, said that it was important to give people in violence-wracked Central American countries hope of a better future. "Most people don't want to leave home and when they do it is usually for one of two reasons: either they are fleeing harm or to stay home means that they cannot satisfy their basic needs to sustain and take care of th...
AFP
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