VERACRUZ, Mexico, (Reuters) – Three Central American nations that have sent a flood of migrants to the United States are ready to provide $5 billion between them to match a sum Washington says may be needed to help solve the problem, Guatemala’s president said on Tuesday.
Struggling to stop the migrant exodus that sparked a crisis in the summer, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador presented U.S. officials with a plan in September to boost their economic growth with infrastructure investment.
Addressing the problem on Nov. 18, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Roberta Jacobson told Congress it could take $5 billion over five years to implement a plan for Central America that the United States has backed.
“It would fall to us to at a minimum put up the same amount, if not more,” Guatemalan President Otto Perez told Reuters in an interview in the Mexican Gulf port of Veracruz on Tuesday. “That needs to come out of our own budget.”
“The billion dollars (a year) would come from the three countries” between them, Perez added.
The money would be plowed into education, health and labor programs, as well as strengthening justice and security, to help deter migrants from heading to the United States.
