Latin America – Root Causes Strategy: Strengths And Weaknesses Of US Foreign Policy In Central America
Multiple organisations in the region have created and participated in the Root Causes Initiative since 2019.
The objective is to influence US foreign policy towards Central America. In these years, more than 200 civil society organisations have contributed in community spaces, especially focused on the analysis of USAID investments in the region. Proposals have been generated for exchanges with officials from the US State Department, USAID, the White House and Congress. The Rafael Landívar University's Institute for Research in Socio-Humanist Sciences has been participating in the Initiative's steering committee, and different actors from the RJM have also been present in spaces for analysis, reflection and the generation of proposals for the Initiative, as well as in some dialogues with public authorities.
This April, the Initiative presents a report with a look at the Root Causes Strategy promoted by the Biden Harris Administration two years after its launch.
RESTORING AMERICAN PRIORITIES TOWARDS CENTRAL AMERICA: A Two-Year Evaluation of the Biden-Harris Root Causes Strategy.
"President Biden's February 2020 Executive Order to address the root causes of migration in Central America and create a humane migration system raised expectations for change in Central America. Since then, the US has provided more than $1 billion in development assistance to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala; pledged $4.2 billion in private sector investment; nearly doubled temporary work visas; and de facto ended access to asylum for most Central Americans. Meanwhile, economic conditions in the region have deteriorated. The presidents of Guatemala and El Salvador have dismantled democracy and the rule of law in their countries. Meanwhile, the number of people migrating out of and through Central America has increased significantly. Although the President's Executive Order focused on northern Central America, today the Administration faces an influx of people on the move from all over the hemisphere who are motivated to leave their homes by a vicious cycle of climate change, economic hardship and political instability. Given all that has changed in Central America, the world, and the Administration's approach to the region, the time is ripe for an independent assessment of the Biden-Harris Root Causes Strategy.
The report addresses this assessment in different chapters on (1) Democracy and Rule of Law, (2) Sustainable and Locally Led Development, (3) Inclusive Economic Policy and (4) Human Migration Policy. In its conclusions, the report reinforces the connection that we fully share between the causes of forced migration, the constraints to migrating and the enormous risk-taking involved in these flight from Central America. Each chapter offers specific recommendations in its area of interest.
We also join the report's call for the need to collaborate and open spaces for the real participation of civil society and grassroots organisations in this strategy, the need for transparency and accountability, and the urgent call for an end to restrictive migration policies, especially visible on the region's routes and borders.
You can download the full report in English and Spanish.
If you want to access other documents of interest on migration or advocacy positions, please visit our website.
Source : redjesuitasconmigrantes
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