The former president of Guatemala and Vice President Kamala Harris stood side by side in his palace three years ago and issued a warning to would-be migrants– Do not come to the United States.
However, her efforts were ignored, and since Harris’s comments in June 2021, there have been 709,305 interactions with Guatemalan migrants at the southern border. By the end of the current fiscal year in September, it is anticipated that over 2 million migrants from different nations will be caught along the border. The region’s foot traffic has been consistently high for three years running.
The new Guatemalan president, Bernardo Arévalo, appeared unsure whether migrants had complied with Harris’s three-year-old request. He met with President Biden and Harris in Washington this week, where voters’ worries about immigration and border security persist. During lengthy talks with Harris, Arévalo praised the president as “very warm” and stressed the need for expanded U.S. economic involvement in Guatemala. He thanked investors for providing a practical means to prevent the flight of his countrymen and expressed his interest in continuing such a partnership.
Arévalo, a 65-year-old former diplomat and sociologist, took office in January after an impressive fight against corruption. He has overthrown the conservative political establishment in the nation but continues to face attempts by his adversaries to prosecute them on charges of election manipulation. He denies these claims.
The Guatemalan president has voiced his support for journalist José Rubén Zamora’s release to restore democratic ideals and revitalize Guatemala’s government. Zamora received a six-year jail term in 2023 after being found guilty of money laundering allegations when President Alejandro Giammattei was in office. On his inauguration day, Arévalo mentioned that he had told the country’s prison chief to alleviate Zamora’s terrible jail circumstances.
Despite his statements endorsing the journalist’s freedom, Arévalo is constrained by the constraints of Guatemala’s legal system, as stated in the Guatemalan Constitution, from announcing a concrete date for the jailed journalist’s release.
