Guatemala Hosts Second SICA Meeting on Cuban Emigrants

Representatives of member countries of the Central American Integration System (SICA) are discussing today in Guatemala possible solutions for the situation around Cuban migrants stranded in Costa Rica

The meeting is the second of technical nature held by the parties, after the one that took place on December 22 with similar objectives in Mexico, where this country ratified that would allow the passage of nearly 8,000 Cubans only if the government of Enrique Peña Nieto guarantees the opening of its borders to them.

Previously, the government of Guatemala formally requested its northern neighbor to certify in writing that it will receive them, and asked to coordinate the bodies responsible for the costs of transportation, lodging and food for these people, since the country can not afford it.

However, until today it has not received any notification, while insisting to note that the United States should rather give equal treatment to all migrants, whether Cubans or Central Americans, and end with the Cuban Adjustment Act that makes a difference in that order.

According to this law, in force in the US since 1966, any Cuban who reaches that country by land is received and after a year has the possibility to apply for their status as a permanent resident.

Today, Guatemala expects to achieve practical and technical solutions within the legal framework of each nation, an immigration situation that according to its authorities can not be described as humanitarian.

‘Guatemala believes that there is a humanitarian situation, because these people are not political refugees, they have not been affected by war or natural disasters’, the foreign ministry said in a statement posted on the website of that institution, on December 19.

It recognizes that to migrate is a human right, but that the characteristics of the Cuban migration are of economic or family integration nature, the same as Guatemalan to the United States.

Like the previous meeting, the one taking place today will be behind closed doors at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala, in this capital.

Guatemala and Belize have a similar position on the matter, while El Salvador and Honduras support Costa Rica’s persistence on letting Cuban migrants seek their destination, the United States.

Along with these countries, other member countries of SICA (Panama and Nicaragua), favor the option of migrants in Costa Rican territory to return to their country of origin because they have all kinds of legal safeguards to do so without reprisals, according to the statement by Cuban authorities.