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SECURITY AND MIGRATION MEETING IN GUATEMALA

On February 10 and 11, the Inter-American Dialogue hosted the second meeting of its initiative on security and migration in Central America and Mexico, in conjunction with the Asociación de Investigación y Estudios Sociales (ASIES) and La Red Centroamericana de Centros de Pensamiento e Incidencia. Nearly forty regional analysts, private sector leaders, journalists, government officials, and diplomats gathered to discuss the deepening security and migration challenges and ways to affect national, regional, and US policies on these issues.

Special guests included President Otto Pérez Molina of Guatemala; Mauricio López Bonilla, minister of the interior of Guatemala; Claudia Paz y Paz, attorney general of Guatemala; Francisco Dall'Anese, commissioner of the UN Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala; Arnold Chacon, US ambassador to Guatemala; and ambassadors from Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.

The first day of discussions focused on security problems, including debates on current national, regional, and international approaches to tackling increasing criminal violence and strategies for future action. Participants analyzed institutional weaknesses in Central America’s “northern triangle,”  weighed the risks and lessons of the Nicaraguan and Costa Rican cases, discussed Mexico-Central America security cooperation, and exchanged ideas about the United States’ role in addressing criminal threats. On migration, the debates centered on how to develop effective national policies and reform the United States’ broken immigration system.

ABOUT

The Dialogue’s work on the Central America region examines developments in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, as well as Mexico, with a focus on democratic governance, security, immigration, drug policy, remittances, education reform, energy integration, press freedom, and trade capacity building. The Dialogue’s Central American Working Group is designed to produce fresh, balanced analyses of the region’s most pressing challenges along with practical proposals to address them, and to keep Washington informed. The group includes a diverse mix of some 30 policy analysts, political and labor leaders, economists, and NGO and business executives. A new Dialogue initiative on security and migration in Central America and Mexico is developing a joint program with leading research centers in the region on two of the most important challenges their countries now face: (1) the threats posed by escalating crime and violence, and (2) the failure of governments to address the political, social, and security problems emerging from continued illegal migration flows to the United States.

STAFF

Michael Shifter, President
Peter Hakim, President Emeritus
Manuel Orozco, Senior Associate
Joan Caivano, Deputy to the President
Kim Covington, Program Assistant
Rachel Schwartz, Program Assistant

For more information, contact Kim Covington at kcovington@thedialogue.org or (202) 463-2560 or Rachel Schwartz at rschwartz@thedialogue.org or (202) 463-2572.


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CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY

  • The Crisis in Honduras, by Michael Shifter, Testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, July 10, 2009.  

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