Guatemalan Stresses Immigrant Sacrifices

Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom, on his first visit to Washington since taking office in January, said yesterday that his country's discredited police and justice systems need to be "reordered and disciplined" and that Guatemalan immigrants who are in the United States illegally deserve the same temporary legal protections that have been granted other Central Americans.

In a meeting with Washington Post editors and reporters, the soft-spoken Colom, a center-left politician who defeated a conservative former army general, said the problem of illegal immigration needs to be addressed "in a multilateral way" involving regional governments, rather than through arrests and deportations. Last year, he said, about 7,500 Guatemalans were deported from the United States.

Colom, 56, said there should be recognition of the "great sacrifice" many Guatemalans have made by leaving their families and seeking work abroad. More than 1 million Guatemalans live in the United States, sending home more than $3.6 billion a year in remittances. He said that money represents 12 to 13 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

The Guatemalan Embassy estimates that 70,000 Guatemalans live in the Washington area. "They are not delinquents," Colom said. "They have come here to improve their economic horizons." He said he had asked President Bush in a meeting Monday to establish a program of temporary legal protection for Guatemalans who are in the United States without permission; Bush told reporters that he would consider the request but that comprehensive immigration reform is also needed.

By some estimates, more than half the Guatemalans in the United States are here illegally. Many fled civil war and military repression in the 1980s and 1990s, but many others have since migrated for economic reasons. Guatemala is an extremely poor country, with 40 percent illiteracy, deep social inequities and a per capita income of about $5,500.

Many refugees from conflicts and disasters in El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua have received temporary legal protection from the U.S. government. Some protection programs have been renewed repeatedly in recent decades.

"Until the government passes immigration reform, all Central Americans here need [temporary protected status] to help to regularize their documents, so they can work without fear and not stay in the closet," said Elmer Arias, a Salvadoran American businessman and area leader of the Central American community.

Colom said he had begun to tackle Guatemala's horrendous crime and violence, which include gang activity, drug trafficking and abuse and corruption in the police and courts. Guatemala has a long history of political violence that has increasingly evolved into criminal activity since the country's long-running civil war ended in 1996.

"The security forces are totally disordered," Colom said, adding that his administration is in the process of purging the police forces and that in just three months it had been able to stabilize the crime rate. He said Guatemala had paid a "terrible price" for the regional problem of drug trafficking and needs multilateral cooperation to combat it.

In their meeting, Bush and Colom discussed a proposed regional anti-drug initiative called the Merida Project and agreed on the need for a joint effort.