GUATEMALA CITY — Vice President Mike Pence arrived in Guatemala on Thursday for a meeting with Central American leaders about the growing number of migrants being detained at the U.S. border, a situation that has flared into a political and humanitarian crisis for the Trump administration.
Pence’s visit came at the conclusion of a swing through Latin America during which he has warned migrants not to risk their lives by trying to enter the United States illegally. Pence, accompanied by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, met Thursday evening with the leaders of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, the home countries of the majority of the migrants detained on the Southwest U.S. border.
Some Central American leaders have been criticized domestically for their lukewarm initial reactions to the crisis as migrant parents have been separated from their children under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy. While Trump has since suspended the family separations, at least 2,500 children are still being kept in shelters as their parents frantically try to find them.
Guatemala’s president, Jimmy Morales, sacked his spokesman for initially saying his government agreed with the zero-tolerance policy. El Salvador’s deputy foreign minister, Liduvina Magarin, has publicly called on citizens to not travel illegally across the U.S. border, and complained that conditions in shelters were “totally inadequate.”
