http://www.dominicantoday.com/app/article.aspx?id=9022

Latin Americans to respond to US plan for border wall

Guatemala City.- Guatemala's foreign minister said here Wednesday that he and his counterparts from the region plan to use their meeting next week in Mexico to craft a "comprehensive" immigration initiative in a bid to head off U.S. lawmakers' plans for new barriers along their nation's southern border.

The goal of the one-day gathering, Briz said, "is to design a joint proposal that includes the suggestions of all the countries and that demonstrates our concern for solving this long-running problem." "It will be a respectful proposal that we'll present to U.S.

authorities for their consideration" before the Senate takes up the bill approved by the House of Representatives on Dec. 16.

That measure calls for the construction of hundreds of miles of barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border and would make illegal entry into the country a criminal offense, meaning undocumented migrants could be jailed rather than deported.

Last week, Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein called the U.S. proposal to build a wall along its border with Mexico "absolutely intolerable and inhuman ... (and) an insult to Latin America." He said U.S. migration policy could force the region to "reconsider" its relations with the United States.

"We take it as a total insult to all Latin America that a government calling itself a friend and partner in the region only wants our money and our goods, but sees our people as if they were an epidemic ... they treat us as if we were a sub-hemisphere of criminals," Stein told reporters.

According to figures from the International Organization for Migrations, close to 1.3 million Guatemalan immigrants live in the United States, 90 percent of whom are there illegally.

The United States is also home to an estimated 4.5 million undocumented immigrants from Mexico as well as to large numbers of Salvadorans and other Central Americans.

The House's action on Dec. 16 fanned indignation in Mexico among civic organizations, the Roman Catholic Church and President Vicente Fox, who called the measure "shameful," and even the staunchly pro-U.S. government in El Salvador had harsh words for Washington lawmakers.