At the ninth installment of the Summit of the Americas, the Biden Administration announced the “Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection,” a document focused on “strengthening national, regional, and hemispheric efforts to create the conditions for safe, orderly, humane, and regular migration and to strengthen frameworks for international protection and cooperation.”[1]

This is significant because it echoes some of the principles mentioned in the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCM or Compact),[2] a landmark (if aspirational) United Nations document that was passed in 2018, with the notable exception of key countries like the United States. In 2021, however, the United States endorsed the Compact.[3]

Held in Los Angeles this year between June 6-10, the tri-annual conference was missing some notable exceptions from the region (namely Mexico, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba), some who were not invited by the Administration, and others who chose to rescind their invitations. The conference itself was met with skepticism by academics and policy makers, but it did provide an opportunity to display leadership for regional players.

One of the more tangible results was a commitment to organize the first-ever Cities Summit of the Americas in April 2023 in Denver, Colorado.[4] While opportunities for political rhetoric might not necessarily lead to pragmatic progress at the national and regional level, as many summits of this nature have shown, city- and local-level diplomacy could yield results that may have a positive impact in the lives it is meant to better.

Malteser International Americas welcomes the Los Angeles Declaration as a welcome step on the road to addressing the root causes of migration.

What comes next, however – and what many academics, civil society leaders, and respected figures from the region have mentioned – is what concrete actions come of the declarations made in Los Angeles last week.

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/06/10/los-angeles-declaration-on-migration-and-protection/

[2] https://www.iom.int/global-compact-migration

[3] https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/gcm-Accessible_12212021.pdf

[4] https://www.cfr.org/councilofcouncils/global-memos/region-divided-what-did-summit-americas-accomplish