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BOGOTA, Colombia Nov 30 (AP) \u2014 Colombia wants the Biden administration to grant temporary legal status to its citizens now living in the United States, noting its own efforts to address regional migration by hosting 2 million Venezuelans who fled their homes.<\/p>\n
Gustavo Petro, who was elected Colombia\u2019s first leftist president in June, is committed to the \u201cincredibly generous policies\u201d of his predecessor, which includes temporary status for 1.8 million people who fled neighboring Venezuela, said Luis Alberto Murillo Urrutia, Colombia\u2019s ambassador to the U.S.<\/p>\n
But the diplomat asked the United States for help, saying that in addition to Venezuelans who stay and work, more than 80,000 migrants pass through Colombia each year on their way to other countries.<\/p>\n
In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, he asks President Joe Biden to grant Colombians already in the U.S. a form of temporary status called Deferred Enforced Departure.<\/p>\n
\u201cMigration is a regional issue that should be addressed under the principle of shared responsibility, strengthening regional cooperation to ensure migratory regularization,\u201d Murillo Urrutia wrote in a letter dated Nov. 17 and released Tuesday by Colombian officials.<\/p>\n
That language echoes an agreement that Biden struck in June in Los Angeles among Western Hemisphere countries, including Colombia under then-President Iv\u00e1n Duque. \u201cThe Los Angeles Declaration\u201d was billed as a roadmap for countries to host large numbers of migrants and refugees.<\/p>\n
The White House and Homeland Security Department had no immediate comment late Tuesday on Colombia\u2019s request.<\/p>\n
It is unclear how many Colombians are living in the United States without legal status. The Migration Policy Institute estimated 171,000 in 2019 but that was before tens of thousands arrived at the U.S. border with Mexico this year, many of them released to pursue their cases in immigration court.<\/p>\n
U.S. authorities have stopped Colombians 131,890 times at the Mexican border during the first 10 months of this year, including 17,195 times in October, a sharp increase that has made them one of the largest nationalities at the border. Few have been subject to Trump-era asylum restrictions, which have largely applied to migrants that Mexico agrees to take \u2014 Guatemalans, Hondurans, El Salvadorans and, more recently, Venezuelans, in addition to Mexicans.<\/p>\n
Murillo Urritia said there are nearly 2 million Colombians living in the United States, without elaborating on their immigration status. Many fled decades-old conflicts that he said the new government is committed to ending under 2016 peace accords.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Colombian government and the National Liberation Army resumed peace talks after a roughly four-year hiatus during which the rebels have expanded the territory where they operate.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor more than 60 years, hundreds of thousands of Colombian citizens have been forced to leave the country because of the conflict seeking to rebuild their lives, many of the more recently arrived still remain vulnerable and unprotected in the United States,\u201d Murillo Urrutia wrote.<\/p>\n
The Biden administration has extended temporary status for some countries and added Afghanistan, Ukraine, Myanmar, Cameroon and Venezuela, reversing a Trump-era trend to cut back on protections for those already in the United States.<\/p>\n
The Colombian diplomat said his government\u2019s goal \u201cis for our people to return to Colombia in a dignified manner if they choose to or adjust their immigration status in the United States if they have the legal avenues to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BOGOTA, Colombia Nov 30 (AP) \u2014 Colombia wants the Biden administration to grant temporary legal status to its citizens now living in the United States, noting its own efforts to address regional migration by hosting 2 million Venezuelans who fled their homes. Gustavo Petro, who was elected Colombia\u2019s first leftist president in June, is committed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-205963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}