Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei told Newsmax on Wednesday that his country is ''working to keep America safe'' from the stream of migrants coming from Central America to enter the United States illegally, despite not receiving any financial assistance from the administration of President Joe Biden.
''We are working to keep America safe [and] free,'' Giammattei said through an interpreter on ''Spicer & Co.'' ''We are not receiving any financial aid from the government of the United States, so to stop the immigration, we don't have any real assistance.''
Giammattei said that 200 illegal migrants were stopped and deported from Guatemala on Tuesday, and that his country is seeing people from Chile, Colombia, Nicaragua and Pakistan arriving at its border, and uses a U.S.-provided list to watch for terrorists.
''We're working with our own forces in stopping and detaining [illegal migrants] as they can,'' he said. ''People are arriving to our borders. We are not allowing caravans into Guatemala. The groups have been diminishing in size. We keep the presence of our military and police to identify people to be able to identify the immigrants.''
He pointed out that there is no current immigration policy between the U.S., Mexico and Central America, including Panama.
Giammattei said that while his country recently denied a charter plane load of 150 people, that plane just modified its plan and flew to Mexico because there were no requirements there not to accept the plane.
''A lot of people are entering into Mexico because they have direct flights from Venezuela to Mexico,'' he said. ''So, they don't have to stop by Guatemala.''
He also said that between Colombia and Panama, an estimated 70,000 people are waiting to come to the United States once the Title 42 health emergency order is lifted so they cannot be deported on health grounds, which would ''provoke an incredible wave of immigrants.''
''We've been working with the Mexican authorities,'' he said. ''They even have borrowed some buses to us so we can expel and return people. However, in contrast from the United States, we haven't received any single monetary fund, so they can help us in expelling the people back to the border.''
In his speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Giammattei said the surge of immigrants in caravans coming into his country illegally has created a ''national and transnational security issue.''
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