U.S. Embassy Press Release Aims to Clarify Illegal Immigrant Policy

The controversy that has arisen recently due to Honduran President Zelaya’s strengthening ties with left-leaning governments has ignited the debate about U.S. handling of Honduran illegal immigrants. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, an outspoken critic of U.S. President Bush, has had an increasing presence in Honduras and has raised the possibility that the U.S. is now targeting Honduran illegals in retaliation to these ties.

The Petrocaribe deal offered Honduras an apparently safe long term loan in exchange for half of the national petroleum consumption bills.

Then it was the Petro Aliementos agreement in which the Venezuelans offered to buy basic foods from Honduras in exchange for petroleum.

Late last month, Honduras hosted presidents from both South and Central America and signed on to the ALBA agreement, created by Chavez and then-president Fidel Castro of Cuba as an alternative to ALCA, an agreement that included the U.S. ALBA intentionally leaves the U.S. out of the trade equation.

One week ago the Honduran president decided to postpone the official acceptance of credentials of the new U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, Hugo LLorens, justifying such action by acting in solidarity with Bolivian President Evo Morales and his unstable government and separatist crisis.

The U.S. Ambassador snub was the final controversy in which Zelaya’s opposition and critics are now claiming will lead to the U.S. government getting ‘revenge’ by affecting the nearly one million Honduran migrants currently in that country who send almost $3 billion dollars in remittances back to Honduras.

The new U.S. ambassador has been the center of attention in the press the past week, but he has kept mostly quiet regarding the controversy. He did state that he was happy to return to Honduras and meet with President Zelaya, deflecting the controversy and seemingly calming the waters.

The U.S Embassy based in Tegucigalpa then explained through an “Official Declaration” that they were going to revise the TPS (Temporary Permanency Status) policy after December, 2008 and officially announce the revisions in February, 2009. The Embassy made it clear that the recent chain of events had no bearing on its immigration policy nor does it plan to increase the amount of Hondurans living illegally in the U.S. because of recent events.

For the opposition, this official declaration of the Bush administration reflects (in the fine print) that Bush is giving the responsibility of this matter over to his successor, Barack Obama or John McCain, possibly indicating the consequences of Zelaya’s current style of governing.

Below, HTW has transcribed the Official Press Release released by the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa:

OFFICIAL TEXT

POLICIES OF IMMIGRATION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ARE NOT AFFECTED BY BILATERAL RELATIONS

Honduras and the United States of America have forged traditional bonds of friendship and a strong relationship of cooperation. Our two countries have shared decades of friendly relations and, without a doubt, this will continue. Sometimes we will disagree, which is normal between two friendly countries. The disagreements, however, will not affect the overall solid relationship between the U.S. and Honduras, nor will it affect foreign policy towards Honduras.

After Hurricane Mitch in 1998, the government of the United States granted Temporary Protection Status (TPS) to undocumented Honduran immigrants who arrived in the United States following the disaster.

TPS has been extended by the government of the United States eight times in its history. Approximately 72,000 Hondurans are living under TPS and almost 300,000 live illegally in the United States.

The United States of America at the same time continues maintaining their open door policy while also monitoring its borders. Since 1999 we have offered TPS to Honduras due to the friendship between our two nations. Nevertheless, TPS is a temporary program that needs to be reviewed periodically. The United States will review the TPS at the end of this year, and will determine if an extension can be granted or not after January, 2009.

The Hondurans must be sure that the policy of immigration of the government of the United States will not be stricter due to the differences between our two countries. The United States of America is a country of laws and our foreign policy is not based on any decision or policy that friendly governments take.

The fact is that the 70 percent of the illegal immigrants are stopped in or near the border. The remaining 30 percent are stopped in the interior, working in different businesses or companies. Our authorities have specific procedures to follow as far as the investigations of these places, and are going door to door of businesses or particular houses to find illegal immigrants. The illegal immigrants are not looked by nationality, and nobody is proposing targeting Honduran illegal immigrants.

From January to June of 2008, 16,927 Hondurans have been deported from the United States. During the same time period, 16,482 Guatemalans and 12,618 Salvadorans were deported from the United States.

These numbers only reflect the fact that the flow of people from these countries to the United States illegally is quite high. Millions of Hondurans depend on the remittances their relatives send working in the United States.

The recent events in the economy of the United States have reduced to the number of jobs and opportunities that Hondurans previously had living in the country. Therefore, this affects the amount of remittances that they are able to send to their relatives. This is not the result of a policy of the United States, but an economic reality.

According to the Central bank, remittances Hondurans send from the U.S. back are equivalent to approximately 20% of the Gross Internal Product, or more than $2.6 billion annually.