The United States and Costa Rica have announced a joint Migration Arrangement, outlining our mutual commitments to work collaboratively on migration and protection issues. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica Dr. Cynthia A. Telles, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Transborder at the National Security Council Katie Tobin, DHS Assistant Secretary for International Affairs Serena Hoy, and Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees and Migration Marta Youth joined their Costa Rican counterparts President Carlos Alvarado, Minister of Foreign Affairs Rodolfo Solano, and Minister of Public Security Michael Soto in announcing this arrangement. This marks an important step in implementing President Biden's comprehensive plan to collaboratively manage migration in our hemisphere by providing a common framework on stabilization, legal pathways, and protection. These efforts pave the way for a regional declaration on migration and protection and for a more secure, prosperous, and democratic hemisphere.
We welcome the Government of Costa Rica's leadership in providing protection to refugees, asylum seekers, and vulnerable migrants and enhancing secure, humane border enforcement, including through this collaboration. Countries throughout the region have a shared responsibility to improve migration management and provide protection and legal pathways for the region's most vulnerable people.
President Biden called for a new framework for nations to collectively manage migration in the Western Hemisphere. In October 2021, I met with our regional partners at the Regional Migration Ministerial in Colombia, where we expressed our commitment to securing our borders and upholding the dignity and humanity of those who seek to cross them. We seek to dramatically expand access to resettlement and other legal pathways throughout the hemisphere, and to aggressively pursue the criminal smugglers and traffickers who prey on vulnerable migrants for profit.
The United States works with partners throughout the Americas to address the root causes of irregular migration and to strengthen humane migration management systems in collaboration with governments, civil society, and international organizations in the region.
