At no time will we allow our compatriots to return to the country under undignified conditions, Paz warned during his participation in the daily forum broadcast by the public television station Channel 8.
He pointed out that part of the dialogue with the U.S. authorities is that “under no circumstances will a Honduran be brought down with handcuffs and shackles to their homeland, where they deserve respect and President Xiomara Castro created programs so that they feel that their country and their government are with them,” he emphasized.
He stressed that Honduras and the United States maintain strong ties of friendship to work on migration, economic and security issues, but we are not going to share all the decisions, in particular the disrespect for the rights of our fellow citizens, he stressed.
He recalled the launch by the president, earlier this week, of the National Emergency Strategy for the Protection of Honduran Migrants, which seeks to provide comprehensive support to her compatriots in an irregular situation in the United States, in transit and to those who have returned.
Within that strategy, he explained, is the Brother and Sister, Come Home program, an ambitious assistance plan that includes immediate economic support and funds for entrepreneurship in order to achieve the reintegration of migrants into society.
“No country today has a strategy of this humanitarian and comprehensive approach that the Government of the Republic is giving to its fellow citizens,” said the director of the INM.
He called on the Trump administration not to judge all Hondurans residing in the United States as criminals.
In his opinion, the only crime committed by the majority of his compatriots and Latin American citizens was to abandon their countries, where for decades a neoliberal economic model was implemented that has not worked, he said.
Hondurans have one of the most qualified laborers and 99 percent of our compatriots went to work and contribute to the American economy, Paz stressed, who is confident that these alarming scenarios will calm down and change.
In a statement, the United Nations representation in Tegucigalpa expressed its support for the national emergency strategy for the protection of migrants established by the Government of this Central American nation.
In addition, the UN showed its willingness to support the implementation of the program, which guarantees the protection of the rights of migrants and their socioeconomic and cultural reintegration.
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