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| - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken began a two-day trip to Costa Rica on Tuesday to discuss with Central American countries the growing number of migrants from the region who are heading to the United States. Blinken, who is making his first visit to Latin America, was due to meet with foreign ministers from the member countries of the Central American Integration System (Sica): Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. He is also due to meet with Mexican officials. "Immigrants enrich our society. Immigrants have been and always will be essential to America's success. I am proud to say we have many immigrants working here at the @StateDept," Blinken wrote on Twitter before leaving Washington. Upon arrival in the Costa Rican capital San Jose, Blinken headed to a meeting with President Carlos Alvarado and Foreign Minister Rodolfo Solano. "This is a great opportunity to see regional solutions" and deepen "our collaborative approach to migration challenges," Julie Chung, the acting assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, told reporters last week. The aim of the trip is to put into practice President Joe Biden's desire to tackle the "root causes" of migrant arrivals to the southern border of the United States, Chung said, recalling that Washington had planned an aid package of $4 billion for the countries of the Northern Triangle (Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador). "The administration has been clear from the beginning about the importance of addressing corruption," because "when you address the migration -- irregular migration -- the corruption and governance and rule of law, those are all interconnected," the diplomat added. "These are some of the issues that are the drivers of why people leave their homes in the first place. They don't have confidence in their governments," she said. When Biden arrived at the White House in January, he was quickly confronted with a large influx of Central American migrants at the US border with Mexico. Republicans accuse Biden, who promised a more "humane" migration policy to turn the page on the draconian restrictions of Donald Trump's presidency, of having created a surge -- and of subsequently denying the existence of a "crisis." Reforms promised by the Democrat have been slow to take shape. Biden has entrusted Vice President Kamala Harris with the high-risk dossier. For the moment, she has promised comprehensive action against the root causes of the influx of migrants, without going into detail, before she makes her first trip to Mexico and Guatemala next week. Blinken has praised Costa Rica, which has just joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), but not all those in San Jose for the Sica meeting will be on good terms with the United States. Washington recently denounced the attacks by the government of El Salvador on the independence of the judiciary, and Chung reiterated her concern about the situation in Nicaragua, particularly with regard to press freedom and human rights. fff/st-bc/sst
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