Biden unveils migration plan at Americas summit
STORY: BIDEN: "With this declaration we are transforming our approach to managing migration in the Americas."
U.S. President Joe Biden along with fellow leaders from the Western Hemisphere Friday unveiled a new set of measures to confront the regional migration crisis - seeking to salvage an Americas summit roiled by division.
BIDEN: “The Los Angeles declaration is built around four core pillars. First, stability and assistance. Making sure that communities welcoming refugees can afford to care for them, to educate them, medical care, shelter, and job opportunities. Second, increasing pathways for legal migration throughout the region as well as protections for refugees. Third, working together in implementing a more humane and coordinated border management systems. And finally, making sure we are working to respond to emergencies.”
20 countries joined Biden for a ceremonial roll out of the plan - though several others stayed away.
Some analysts are skeptical that the pledges are even meaningful enough to make a significant difference.
Just a day earlier, the same day the summit kicked off in Los Angeles, asylum seeking migrants from Central and South America arrived at the U.S. border on rafts after crossing the Rio Grande river into Texas - another example of the illegal migration crisis still plaguing the U.S.
Meanwhile in California, there was a partial boycott of the summit by leaders, including Mexico's president, to protest Washington's exclusion of leftist U.S. antagonists Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
The Biden administration, facing a record flow of illegal migrants at its southern border, pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in aid as part of a U.S.-led pact dubbed the "Los Angeles Declaration" aimed at creating incentives for countries taking in large numbers of migrants and spreading responsibility across the region.
The plan culminates a summit hosted by Biden that was designed to re-establish U.S. influence among its southern neighbors, including a new economic partnership that appears to be a work in progress.
