The president of Guatemala has accused the Biden administration of declining his country’s solution to end the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border and the chaos in his Central American country, according to a new report.
Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei approached Washington with a plan for the United States to deport people heading north from Guatemala before they reach the U.S.-Mexico border, he told Daily Caller News Foundation reporter Jennie Taer in an interview published Tuesday.
“Having all of these people in the United States costs the U.S. government millions and millions of dollars. We have suggested that they should keep the airplanes here, so that we ourselves can deport them back to their countries of origin, be it Haiti or be it whatever the country,” Giammattei said in an interview in Guatemala City. “Otherwise, why wait until the people reach U.S. soil to then spend millions and millions of dollars to then send them back?”
In President Joe Biden’s first 20 full months in office, nearly 4 million people have been encountered attempting to enter the U.S. illegally, far beyond any other period in national history. That figure does not include the illegal immigrants who evaded arrest.
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Those who cross the U.S. southern border travel through multiple countries on the way north, sometimes a dozen places — all while not seeking asylum there. The influx of people passing through has caused turmoil in Guatemala.
Guatemala is only returning Honduran citizens south of its border, but Giammattei is willing to fly or bus people back to other countries. The move could deter others from making the journey through Guatemala to the U.S., knowing that they would be returned.
Giammattei said the U.S. turned down his idea of allowing Guatemala to use American planes to return people to their countries of origin on the basis that the “laws don’t allow it.”
The U.S. has a history of donating vehicles and resources to the country. Just last week, the U.S. gave Guatemala 95 vehicles to boost its border security.
The Giammattei administration has asked the U.S. for additional financial assistance but received “very little” toward helping the government turn away illegal immigrants.
In 2022, the U.S. sent $109 million in foreign aid to Guatemala — only that money did not go to the government. Instead, it went to nonprofit and private organizations that work with immigrants in the country and even help them continue on to the U.S. One such example is the United Nations’s International Organization for Migration, whose Guatemala operations received $11 million the previous year.
The Daily Caller News Foundation recently spoke with multiple Afghans who were arrested in Guatemala. They said U.N. workers there told them to continue going to the U.S. and explained how to get across the U.S. southern border.
“They give us a map,” said one of the Afghan men. “The map was up to Mexico. There was no United States. But they told how to cross these borders.”
EXCLUSIVE from Guatemala City: Here’s what Guatemalan President Alejandro Giamattei thinks of VP Kamala Harris’ efforts to address the “root causes of migration”@DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/W45mYFK3vO
— Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) October 25, 2022
Giammattei confirmed that the U.N. was aiding illegal immigration.
“And as far as the IOM, they will take action only when a person becomes a voluntary returnee, they will say, ‘Oh, no, he doesn’t want to go back.’ So they just let them go through. And this is something we cannot allow,” Guatemala’s president said.
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The Guatemalan president declined to comment in the interview about Vice President Kamala Harris’s work of improving conditions in Central America so that people do not leave.
The White House did not return a request for comment.
