Colombia is asking the Biden administration to give temporary legal status to its citizens now residing in the United States because of its efforts to solve regional migration by sheltering two million Venezuelans who fled their homes.

Colombia's ambassador to the United States, Luis Alberto Murillo Urrutia, said that since taking office in June, Gustavo Petro has remained faithful to his predecessor's "incredibly generous policies," which include providing temporary status to the 1.8 million people who fled neighboring Venezuela.

However, the envoy begged the U.S. for help, noting that annually, more than 80,000 migrants pass via Colombia en route to other countries, many of them Venezuelans who have stayed and worked there.

In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Urrutia requests that President Joe Biden offer Colombians already present in the United States a temporary status known as Deferred Enforced Departure.

The letter, dated November 17 and made public on Tuesday by Colombian authorities, read, "Migration is a regional issue that should be addressed under the principle of shared responsibility, strengthening regional cooperation to ensure migratory regularization."

NBC News noted that this phrase is like one that Biden and other Western Hemisphere leaders, including Colombia's then-president Iván Duque, reached in June in Los Angeles.

The "Los Angeles Declaration" was promoted as a guide for nations hosting significant influxes of migrants and refugees.

As of late Tuesday, neither the White House nor the Department of Homeland Security had anything to say about Colombia's request.

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Roughly Two Million Colombians Are Living in the United States

The number of Colombians without legal status who reside in the United States is still being determined.

Still, before this year's arrival of tens of thousands at the Mexican border, when many of them were later freed to pursue their cases in immigration court, the Migration Policy Institute anticipated 171,000 migrants in 2019.

According to Los Angeles Times, Colombians were detained by American officials at the Mexican border 131,890 times in the first ten months of this year, including 17,195 times in October.

This rapid surge has made Colombians one of the most often detained countries at the border.

Few people have been affected by Trump's asylum limitations, which mainly apply to migrants Mexico agrees to accept, including Guatemalans, Hondurans, El Salvadorans, and, more lately, Venezuelans.

Without going into detail about their immigration status, Ambassador Murillo Urrutia said that there are over 2 million Colombians residing in the United States.

Many people left long-standing hostilities, which, according to him, the current administration is dedicated to putting an end to following the 2016 peace accords.

Colombia and the National Liberation Army Resume Peace Talks

After a hiatus of approximately four years, during which the insurgents expanded their area of operation, the National Liberation Army and the Colombian government started peace negotiations this week, per News Times.

Many of the most recently arrived Colombians remain vulnerable and unprotected in the United States, as Murillo Urrutia wrote: "For more than 60 years, hundreds of thousands of Colombian citizens have been forced to leave the country because of the conflict seeking to rebuild their lives, many of the more recently arrived still remain vulnerable and unprotected in the United States."

By granting permanent residency to people from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Myanmar, Cameroon, and Venezuela, the Biden administration pushed back against the Trump administration's efforts to weaken protections for existing residents of the United States.

According to the ambassador, the objective of the Colombian government is for their people to return to Colombia in a dignified way if they desire to or alter their migratory status in the United States if they have the legal routes to do so.

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This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Bert Hoover

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