Everybody but U.S.

U.S. media is full of Trump, ignoring what goes on in the rest of the world (except maybe when it’s Trump in some other part of the world)… and apparently the rest of the world is going on without them.  Translated from AFP Spanish-language report:

New York, July 14. – With the exception of the United States, the United Nations member nations approved the creation of a non-binding global pact on migration Friday. The pact unites countries in a consensus on a subject that divides some European nations, and puts Washington at odds with Latin America.

“Migrants are an extraordinary engine of growth,” said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, welcoming the new “global pact for safe, orderly and regulated migration.”

The pact is not “binding, but it is an unprecedented step to increased international cooperation,” he added.

Under the leadership of two facilitators, Swiss ambassador Jurg Lauber and his Mexican counterpart, Juan José Gómez Camacho, the negotiations dragged on for 18 months. The pact will be formally endorsed in mid-December at a scheduled conference in Morocco.

The document outlines a series of principles – defense of human rights, the rights of children, recognition of national sovereignty – and includes a catalog of measures to help countries cope with migration: action plans to better integrate migrants into their new countries, and for countries to exchange information and experiences in managing migration.

“The global pact will not impose anything on anyone, but it offers solutions”, summarizes Gómez Camacho.

“We have no choice to accept or reject the migration, they [migrants] are there, all over the world,” the president of the UN General Assembly, Miroslav Lajcak, told reporters at the opening of the negotiations.

“We can stick our heads in the sand, think that we will deal with it tomorrow, that it will be for another generation, during another crisis, or act, plan, organize a system and respond to a global phenomenon for a global solution,” he added. .

According to Antonio Guterres, 60,000 migrants have died since the year 2000 at sea, in the desert or elsewhere, so it is not possible to continue with crossed arms. The 25-page document aims to “increase cooperation on international migration in all its dimensions” and combat trafficking in persons like those in Libya.

– Detention of minors –

The text, which is compared in scope to the 2015 Paris accords on climate change, preserves “the sovereignty of the states” while recognizing that “no nation can face the phenomenon of migration alone …It is crucial that international migration unites us instead of dividing us,” the text reads.

Washington withdrew at the end of 2017 from drafting of the pact, because it included provisions contrary to the immigration policy of Donald Trump. The European Union, on the other hand, despite having several member states that have sought to prevent migration into their continent, “spoke with one voice” during the negotiations. Despite requests from Amnesty International, which demanded “zero tolerance” in the matter of child detention, the global pact recognizes that the United States “tries” to reunite children separated from their parents, and that detention might be used … but only as a last resort. Francesco Rocca, president of the International Federation of the Red Cross, called for “lifting the barriers that prevent vulnerable migrants access to humanitarian aid and basic services.”

The number of migrants in the world is estimated at 258 million, 3.4% of the world’s population.