translated from Spanish: US activists to go to Guatemala and Mexico to see migrant situation

A coalition of pro-immigrant organizations from the United States will visit Guatemala and Mexico from August 4 to 9 next to meet first-hand the conditions of thousands of migrants.
“The trip is a joint initiative of a collaborative project that has as its name ‘Refugio for Families'”, explained to Efe the co-founder and executive director of the organization Alianza Américas, Oscar Chacón.
The coalition, which also consists of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM), Partnership for New Americans and We Are All America, which emerged after the appearance of migrant caravans last November, will visit Guatemala City and the border between that mexico, to “witness what is going on.”
“If there is a place where there is a crisis of truth it is central American countries, as people are living so severe lyricism that they throw them on a journey that as we well know is extremely dangerous,” he said.
Chacón warned that U.S. policy, but also now Guatemala and Mexico, “is practically containing the flows of people who have been leaving these countries.”
“All the news from the last two weeks emanating from the White House in Washington has a fundamental problem, which is that they are unaware of the reasons that cause so many people in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to turn to the migration route as they have come doing,” he lamented.
Specifically, the expert considered the Guatemala-Mexico border crossing as a “critical point”, where, he said, “people are currently being detained and deported in high numbers.”
They will also seek to know the panorama following the decision of the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to deploy troops of the newly created National Guard to protect the southern border of Mexico.
“We want to have a first-hand reading of what is going on and how these measures are attacking the humanitarian rights of people seeking protection, seeking refuge and what they are finding rather is police, armies, detention and deportation,” the activist added, recounting that as early as December last year they visited Mexico City in the midst of the crisis over the arrival of thousands of migrants in caravans.
With respect to the visit to Guatemala, Chacón stressed that this “finding of conditions” trip happens “at an opportune time”, after that country signed an immigration agreement with the United States, through which it undertakes to process asylums in its without applicants moving to U.S. territory.
“This raises the priority issue during our stay in Guatemala,” explained the expert, who confirmed have organized meetings with human rights organizations and other actors.

Original source in Spanish