 So this is not, this is America is not the victim of this migration, you know. So we need to, and it isn't susceptible to simplistic thinking. This isn't about fences. This isn't about guards. This is a much more deep and complex problem. And we're not going to be able to understand this problem until we talk to people that share the problem with us. That's why we're so flattered to have you here. That two presidents are willing to come and have a conversation with us about the complexity of this problem that we share together. And we do share it together. This is not our problem alone. It's not Honduras' problem. It's not Guatemala's problem. This is a shared problem. And we need to approach it that way. And we have two remarkable leaders who are willing to take this time with us and help us understand their perspective on this problem. And we're going to together try to find solutions. So I want to say a personal deep thank you. Thank you for helping us to understand something that we need to understand. Let me turn to Carl Meacham. Carl is the head of our America's program. And he's going to do the formal introduction of our two presidents. Thank you all for coming. So thank you, John. And good morning to everybody. Apologies for the delay. But, you know, when you're dealing with presidents, sometimes you just have to wait. So I'm glad you were able to join us today. I'd like to recognize the other members of the governments of Honduras and of Guatemala that are joining us today. Welcome. And I'm sure you're all aware of why we're here. I think Dr. Hamry was very clear. The presidents are in town to meet with President Obama tomorrow and have already met with members of Congress on the ongoing child immigration crisis. As you know, thousands of unaccompanied children, primarily from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, are apprehended trying to cross U.S. borders every day. And the numbers have been growing for some time. The kids are disproportionately impacted by gang driven violence, insecurity, and lack of economic opportunity in their countries of origin. And more than ever before, they're heading for the United States, Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. This has understandably stretched U.S. border control and immigration authorities far beyond their normal operating capacity. They're struggling to meet the needs of these children, and the children keep on coming. Two weeks ago, President Obama requested an emergency appropriation to the tune of $3.7 billion to deal with the crisis, most of which would have been for increasing capacity to receive, care for, and process these children. But after languishing in Congress, Senate Democrats and House Republicans each developed their own proposals, reducing the Presidents by $1 billion and $2 billion respectively, and conditioning support. The implications of tens of thousands of Central American children facing such tough situations at home that they believe traveling hundreds of miles along a treacherous path are many, for one, their safety. These children are subject to threats of violence and exploitation at the hands of drug gangs, and they show up at our border having lived through hell. Second, what it means for these countries and cooperative efforts to bolster their security and prosperity. And that's what the Presidents are here to talk to us about here today. Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina has had a long career in Guatemalan public service, both in government and in the military. He served as head of military intelligence and of chief of staff for former President Ramiro de Leon Carpio, and he's been in office since January of 2012. President Juan Orlando Hernandez of Honduras has served throughout the Honduran government, first in the legislature and later in the executive branch. He's an expert in Honduran law and has been in office since January of this year. After the President's remarks, I'll lead a discussion among the three of us. I want to make sure that you all know that when I finish my remarks, the rest of the event will be conducted in Spanish. We are providing simultaneous Spanish-English interpretation for those of you who need it, so if you haven't already gotten it, please see a member of my staff to get a translation headset. Thank you again for being here with us today. And with that, President Molina, I turn the floor over to you. If you'd like, sit. Thank you very much, Juan, for being here this morning. I believe this is an excellent opportunity for us to be able to share with you our point of view of what is occurring right now, not only to talk about two issues. One is the crisis that has emerged with unaccompanied children, which is an issue that we have to resolve together with cooperation, with each one of us addressing our own responsibilities. We know that these are different responsibilities, but we have to share efforts to find a solution. And I'm sure we are going to find a solution, IMS, to talk about security in the context of the crisis with unaccompanied children. I would like to perhaps start off by saying, sharing a thought, which is that for the countries of Central America, the closeness with the U.S. is a closeness that we would like to view as a strength, being neighbors of the United States, being neighbors of the largest power in the world and the largest economy of the world. We have experienced here, so we're, rather than viewing this strength, we have seen maybe more weaknesses than strength. And I say this because in the case of Guatemala, but also in the case of Nicaragua, Salvador, and also the case somehow of Honduras, we experienced a civil war of 36 years, which was framed within a cold war, a cold war between the two powers of that time. But where the hot spots of that cold war took place in countries of Central America, you may remember back in the 80s, Central America was immersed in civil wars. And this is not something that we can separate from the context of the cold war. We came out of it, we came with internal problems and a number of things, and then we saw the context of what we are now experiencing, which is transnational organized crime, where once again countries of Central America became transit corridors or warehouses for the drugs reaching the United States, and we also became the recipients of arms, and we also became the recipients of the dollars that come, but not legally to our countries. So the thought that the countries of Central America, the closest neighbors of the United States after Mexico, have been involved in circumstances that have become more a weakness than a strength. But as we were coming back from Congress today, we were discussing this. This is the time when those weaknesses and challenges need to be turned into an opportunity and a strength to work together to develop a plan for Central America where we are able to work together. And I say these things because the crisis of children that we are facing today will be resolved. I am certain that it is already on the right path to being resolved with the actions that we have adopted. We have information that tells us that the flow of these children to the border of the United States has dropped by 50 percent. This is a problem that I am sure will be resolved. We have worked very hard, and we will continue to work hard to punish the networks of traffickers. We have arrested one of the largest groups of smugglers of persons, criminals that has made it possible for us to tackle the structures working illegally in this regard. We have engaged in a campaign. We are strengthening our councillors. We are working, all three countries are working together. And this is what will make it possible for us not only to work together, but also with Mexico and in the United States. We will be able to resolve this crisis which is humanitarian in nature because it deals with unaccompanied children. We respect the laws and the processes that need to be followed in the United States. And we are also ready to receive the persons who are deported because they are not eligible to stay in the United States within the context of the United States. And we are getting ready for the last two years already to receive them back and to find the possibilities for them in our country, which is our obligation. Now beyond that, we see, and that is why I say that that we are going to find a solution to this crisis and we are working on that. Now beyond that, how can we work together to solve the underlying causes for this problem, the problems that lead to this migration by children and we have to, to address the underlying causes, we have to work on dissolving or eliminating the violence that is the result of drug traffickers, the money that is laundered through our countries and work together in a more aggressive program, in a cooperation program between Central America and the United States to work on security. In Guatemala alone, between 2003 to 2013, we have seized 50,000 arms, 50,000 arms, which our arms wait for the most part come from the United States. I'd like to say that this is an important area that we have to work on together, but there is also another equally important area, which is the area of opportunities for the economy of our countries to grow, for investment to come years back. The United States was the major investor in our country. Now it is a seventh investor in Guatemala. Before the United States, we see Canada investing in Guatemala, we see Russia, we see Colombia investing in Guatemala, and the United States moved from being the top investor in Guatemala to the seventh investor in Guatemala, and we need the investment, we need the opportunity to create employment, and that will prevent the need for the U.S. to have to invest in border patrolling, border security, border controls, and the money that is invested in border processes with one-tenth of the $7 billion worth of one-tenth of that. If it came as investment in our country, I am sure the United States would no longer need to invest on the border. So these are issues that we are working on, we are working on security, we are working on investment and in growing our economies, and that, on the other hand, will make it possible for us because we are not eluding our responsibilities as our countries. We are engaged in efforts to improve our education, our health systems, and in educating and training our youths, so that they might have the skills needed to be able to gain access to dignified jobs. So this is what I'd like to say. First of all, we're facing a crisis. I am sure that with due respect to the laws of the United States, with the responsibilities that we share, but which are different responsibilities, we are going to solve that crisis and it's already being resolved. In the underlying causes, we have to think of the next five to ten years. In five to ten years, five should be the minimum amount of time and it should not take more than ten years. Where we work together, where we make efforts to continue to eliminate the gap between the rich and the poor, which does exist where we are able to collect more taxes in our countries to invest in the major needs. And if in addition to this, we have the support of a plan for Central America, as has been the case from the United States in Colombia and other countries, I am certain that we would be solving the problems that we now see at the border with the United States. And so I leave you with these thoughts and I hope to be able to interact with you. Thank you very much. A very good day to each of you. I wish to extend my appreciation to the Center for Strategic and International Studies for extending an invitation to us. I think this is a wonderful opportunity, even though the reason for our being here is a great tragedy. One which humanity at large would do well to ponder and study. I'm quite sure that there is no one who is a mother or father or brother or sister or simply a neighbor of anyone can remain inured to the problem that we have before us. This is a problem that we have never seen of a magnitude that is historic. In Honduras, in Guatemala, this has simply overwhelmed us. A few years ago, as we know, the United States in partnership with Colombia were very successful in fighting the levels of violence in Colombia. Something similar was structured in Mexico some time later. And again, some level of significant success was achieved in that country. But precisely because of those successes, we are today faced with a vengeance, a number of drug lords that have now settled in Central America and that have linked up with gangs in an unholy alliance, as it were, that has generated levels of violence that are unprecedented. So what has helped Colombia, what has helped Mexico, alas, has created a problem of gigantic proportions for us. Now, number one, let me address what might be the root causes here. Drug trafficking generates violence. That, of course, leads to immigration. But it is also because of lack of opportunity that this has arisen. We must also point to the ambiguity that has been the hallmark of the debate on the reform of the immigration process in this country. Here, we have to say that the coyotes, the smugglers, who are very much a part of organized crime networks perversely have sought to exploit those ambiguities and peddle a mistaken, a totally wrong interpretation to the parents of these children and saying, you can get your kids into the U.S., we can do it for you. Well, those coyotes, those smugglers, are nothing other than the human face of an enormous criminal monster that has one foot firmly in the camp of the drug lords and in Central America, indeed, in Mexico as well. But the second foot is here in the United States under American jurisdiction. That is why the presidents of Central America, of Mesoamerica, Ritlarge, have decided to put our heads together and recognize that we have here joint, but several, responsibility. This is something that affects us all. Another problem that arises from the drug problem is that Central America is on the very root between those who produce drugs and those who consume drugs massively. And while we know that efforts are certainly underway to reduce the violence that drug trafficking generally generates, this has been done in New York City, it has been managed in Los Angeles and a number of other urban areas, but alas in Central America, the problem remains enormous. What have we done in this regard? Well, this is where we so much appreciate the opportunity that has given us to address you today in this strategic center to tell you what we are doing about it, even with our scarce resources. When this problem arose recently, we took a look at a Homeland Security map and looked indeed also at a map of the United States coming from United States official offices that have traced drug routes. And if you superimpose one map and the other, you see clearly that in the case of Honduras, most of the children have come from the most dangerous areas of our country where drug lords and gangs are at the root of the greatest levels of violence. We're talking about some 30 municipalities in the rest of the country. I can tell you in the five months and five days since I took office as president, I can tell you we have faced the problem frontally and tackled it head on in terms of prevention, in terms of fighting violence. But this of course doesn't blind us to the fact that where the greatest problem lies, where the greatest drug violence is generated is precisely where most of the children are being exported. Well, my wife and others took a look at the housing that is being provided for children, went to the U.S. border, and found absolutely shocking news. Some of the swugglers said to the children, take this, this is a vitamin, it'll be good for you. But what it is is a birth control pill because most of those little girls are the victims of sexual abuse. Others disappear along the way. And therefore I think it's a fair statement to say this is a humanitarian crisis. And that's why we plead that when a child arrives here, surely we must first and foremost concentrate on the interests of that child. I studied for six months in this country. At the time my wife and child remained in Honduras. I missed them tremendously. And until my own wife obtained a scholarship and was able to join me with our child, we pined for each other all the time. So my heart goes out to those who have been split, to families that are torn asunder. Mothers that don't remember their children or the children who don't remember their mothers, but after seeing their mothers briefly, really want to go back to Honduras because it's their grandmother that raised them and there that they feel most of home. So this is a matter and a situation that creates a host of psychological turmoil and difficulties of all stripes. What we are offering is hand in heart, the offer of reinsertion into our country, into society, whether it's in the urban areas or in the more rural areas. But we've done more than that. We closed the Department of Immigration that we used to have and have started from scratch and set up a new immigration office. Why? Because the old immigration officers were in cahoots with the drug lords and the human traffickers. And many of them are now in jail. We have 12 smugglers already, clapped and injured. And we are working on others. We're working hard on the border conditions with El Salvador on the one hand, with Guatemala on the other. But there is no question. As we have discussed with President Otto Perez, President Sanchez Pede of Guatemala and El Salvador respectively, we understand that what we need to do is act on the basis of co-responsibility of shared responsibility amongst ourselves and indeed involving the U.S. as well. We assume that responsibility. And I would simply close with this thought and I share this with the people of the United States. Please remember first and foremost, we're talking about children. These are human beings, but as children, as minors, they are the most vulnerable, the weakest among us. And this should catch the attention and pull at the hard strings of humanity at large. My second message is that Washington must understand that if there exists drug violence in Central America, if there is no peace, if there's a lack of opportunities, this will be downed to an enormous cost to the United States, not to any benefit. By contrast, if Washington understands fully, grasps what a Central America can offer that would be a zone of peace, a zone of opportunity, then this will be a win-win for us all. Then the situation will become a benefit to the U.S. and to us. After all, our countries aren't going to go anywhere. Our territories are rooted where they are. We are, in fact, your third border. Let's work as the neighbors we are, because we're firmly rooted where we are, where we've been. Geography is immutable. A congressperson arose the question not long ago, well, what are you going to do about inequality? What are you going to do about wealth distribution? Well, I can assure you, this is at the foremost place in my concerns. We are now looking at people who are corrupt, wherever they may be, in the police and anywhere else, and we are putting them in the hands of judiciary. We are also looking at the banking systems, which very often have been somehow subverted and are, in fact, generating more inequities, more inequalities instead of bridging these. The state must invest in housing, must invest in education, and we must therefore have the strength to fight teaching unions that are not interested so much in proper education for the children as much as in their own interests. So we need to fight vested interests wherever there may be and identify the good of the people because I am convinced that Central America, which will be at peace, which will be a place of opportunity, will be a place from which we can all benefit. Let me beg this Center for Strategic International Studies to take a hard look at Honduras because I've looked into this and I have the impression with all due respect that you may not have been as aware of the realities on the ground in Honduras as you may now be becoming aware. It is a sad thing that this great tragedy should be such a great opportunity, but so it is. Thank you very much. Good, thank you very much. Well, there is much to be said and we don't have a lot of time, so I am going to go straight to the topic. Many people see what's happening, they see people coming, they see violence, they see the statistics and say. So what are they doing down the border? I'm sure that Congress representatives and perhaps members of the media might be asking those questions. What are the specific things that you are doing to deal with this problem? Can you do this alone? Do you have the capacity to do this alone? Or do you need more assistance? We have CARSI, the Central American Security Initiative here in the United States. It is a framework to deal with many of these problems, but maybe it isn't working. How can that be fixed in what type of commitment from the United States does that require? I believe that these are the natural questions that an American citizen might ask himself or herself. What is Central America doing? And we have already said a little bit about this and now we can explain it a little bit further. I have been in power for two and a half years. Three years into my tenure, I introduced tax reform in order to raise our tax collection rate that we understand that we have to meet our obligations. We were able to introduce education reform, one that had been lagging for 15 years, the tax reform had not passed in 20 years. We were able to get passage on it. We are being able to make the country more competitive to be able to attract investment so that this will create employment opportunities so that these employment opportunities will stop the migration flow. We have accomplished important steps forward in the area of security in my country. There were 40 murders by every 100,000 inhabitants when I took office. Now it's down to 34 per 100,000 this year. We have dropped it to 30 per 100,000. And in the next three years, we are able to reduce it by 10 points. That is going to be extremely important for our country and this had not been able to be accomplished in the past and we are accomplishing it. And that's going to be very important. In terms of economic development, we introduced the largest number of reforms as scored by the World Bank through the doing business. We improved 19 positions last year. And this year, we introduced the largest number of reforms in Latin America and one of the most reforming countries in the world. We hope to be in the top countries introducing the largest number of reforms. In other words, we are doing important things to improve on the security infrastructure, competitiveness and investment to be able to improve our conditions. But to accomplish this, I hope that we can get a closer and more aggressive cooperation programs from the United States. You have mentioned CARSI. Let me say that CARSI created huge expectations in Central America. President Hernández is familiar with that, but the outcomes were not there. Commitments were made. And last night, I talked to the Secretary of SICA and he said to me, we didn't see any resources coming from the United States or what the United States continue to do, not for the region, which is what we hoped for through the Central American security effort. The United States continue to engage in binational cooperation with each one of the countries, rather than with the region. As I said before, I think this is a crisis. Yes, but it allows us to talk not only about the crisis, but to talk about the underlying causes of the crisis. If we don't talk about the underlying causes, crises will continue to occur. The countries are doing each one of us our part, but we know that much remains to be done. We still have a long road ahead of us. We haven't done everything we need to do. As President Hernández has said, who has been in office only six months and I have been in office two and a half years and we are working very hard. But it would be far easier if we had aggressive cooperation from the United States. I'm sure that we could accomplish a lot more and that would be a win-win for the entire region. It really would be a win-win opportunity. I had the opportunity to be the Speaker of the House in Honduras before I was the President of the Republic. We decided to reform as a criminal system. I have been working to clean up the justice operators, police, even military people, confidence positions. This was hard in Honduras. I'm not going to come and tell you anything other than what I have lived and what I recognize to be what it is. The fact of the matter is, organized crime had a real grip on institutions in Honduras and it was essential to cut this Gordian knot, to really get to the bottom of it. And some years ago, we worked with the United States to try to extradite some Honduran citizens that were involved in drug lords. We had to change to amend our Constitution in order to do this. The congressman knew that this was necessary. It was not easy to amend our Constitution. It's not an overnight process. One year went by. We had to wait a second year. Then, of course, we needed to wait for the Supreme Court to act on this. And we did it. The first Honduran to be extradited is now in the United States and is indicted. There are four arrest warrants against other Honduran citizens and a number of foreigners who have been apprehended in like manner. We also levied a special tax, a security tax in order to generate the resources which could be allocated in the areas that are essential to buttress justice, yes, but also to prevent crime. We are undertaking enormous efforts with NGOs, with civil society in general, with churches, with a vast array of people who want to work for the good and who wish to restore to society the ability to live in normalcy, to have fun, to live at peace. And as President Otto Paris of Guatemala has said, we've seen a very dramatic drop in the level of children coming to the borders in the last couple of weeks and the capture of the number of traffickers that were involved in immigration channels have also been record. We are doing what we can to set up now different means of recruiting people, psychometric tests, clearances, a great deal more professional effort being made to screen the right people. We also have an air shield that we have set up with the United States with the assistance of the State Department. Now we know that while there is that air shield, one cannot share information on flights even under international protocols, anything that might lead to shooting down a plane. Trouble is many of those planes are laden with drugs but the simple matter is that since we took over that air shield we have managed to reduce the problem with the tracking and working with the South Command and our Minister for Defense is with me here. He can tell you, as I will tell you, that we have excellent efforts underway to achieve marine interdiction to stop therefore or reduce the flow of drugs by sea as we are working to do it by land. But for the longest time Honduras was a territory that was fully in the hand of drug lords. That is not the case today to the same extent. We're working hard. So we have the shield by sea. We have it by air. We're working now to set it up on land. In the case of Guatemala, this is to a lesser extent the case but we have nine different sea frontiers that we need to look at. This is no small thing. I think that our efforts are paying off but you must be aware that the magnitude of the problem is such that I couldn't tell you that we will be able to resolve this as quickly and as effectively as we would like. Certainly not alone. We have already joined forces with Guatemala and Salvador but I'll tell you we are here today because we want to put our case to the Congress, to President Obama, to the people of the United States to say that Central America as a zone of peace, as a zone free of drugs, as a land that will be one of opportunity will be healthy and beneficial to us all and I hope very much that Washington will understand it. Then says the moderator, I think it's fair to say a new awareness has been generated by this crisis. You have seen how governors of different states of the United States have dealt with this problem. Governor Perry, Texas has sent the National Guard to the border. Duval Patrick of Massachusetts has offered refuge to children who may go to his state. The causes that you have mentioned, the root causes of the problem, are huge as you rightly pointed out but do you think that they require a new type of cooperation, a new way of thinking, a different take that maybe has not been come up with before? You were talking about initiatives that have been taken in the past, Plan Colombia and the Merida Initiative where indeed measures were taken by the Department of State and colleagues in Colombia and in Mexico respectively and their respective armed forces. Are you able to answer any of that? Let me just quickly say the CARSI Initiative because I don't want to leave the President of Guatemala alone in his comment. Even though this was discussed at the SICA meeting, it is true and Vice President Biden discussed this too. For many of us in Central America, this ended up being almost a force. There was a great deal of promises made but at the end of the day not much to show for it. So this isn't a simple thing. I wanted to be sure to let you know that the viewpoint expressed by the President of Guatemala a minute ago is not his viewpoint alone. We share it and it's the sense of many in Central America. Yes? Yeah, we're ready to work together. We believe that this should be a far more aggressive plan. One that can produce results. I would like to repeat what the President of Honduras has already said that $1 invested on Central American security is $1 invested on US security. And I believe that is the vision that we need to adopt. Not see how we invest there. Down there they are able to solve the problem. It's a problem for the region because we have already said it. The arms come from the United States. The dollars come from the United States. And that forces us to invest the financial resources which we could well be investing in infrastructure education and health. It forces us to invest those resources and security and a number of things. And if we were able to do that together with the United States, that would lead to a safer and more prosperous region for the benefit of all. So we stand ready to do it. And it needs to be an aggressive plan, I believe. This morning we were at Capitol Hill and tomorrow we'll spend time with President Obama. And by the way, I would like to say that President Obama has been courageous and has taken the leadership to address migration reform in the United States. And that is important because leadership needs to be used in difficult issues. And President Obama is speaking in favor of more than 11 million migrants who are here working and paying taxes in the United States. And President Obama is fighting to get a passage of migration reform. And we hope that the current crisis in Central America will not lead to this reform not moving forward. We don't have a lot more time. I merely wanted to say that we have structured a tax reform in order to ensure that the tax collection efforts of Honduras is fairer and sounder for the state of Honduras. But we have also launched a set of initiatives, for instance, to jumpstart agricultural production in the rural areas, which for 20 years had been forgotten. We're working with all kinds of different quarters to try to get the countryside going again. We're also working with the most marginalized. We're talking about 45 percent of the Honduran public that live with less than $1 a day for their means of subsistence. We are working to help these people, promoting micro-enterprise, doing all we can to generate massive employment, job creation through the building of low-income housing, social construction that will give people a roof over their head. So let me say it's very sad what's going on and what we're living. But you said it. It's also an opportunity. And we need to concentrate on that. We must not forget either. Let's call it a spade a spade. That the United States is in the run-up to an electoral moment. We are in an electoral process. And I would appeal to the leaders and to the people of this great country to understand that this is a humanitarian crisis. We are neighbors. We are neighbors and will remain neighbors. And it is best to be friends with your neighbors, to ensure the welfare of one's neighbor, so that everyone can benefit. Peace and prosperity in Central America will be good for the United States, for the children and the grandchildren of the American public, as it will be for the children and grandchildren of the Central American public. We have talked about this amongst ourselves. We've talked about it with the House of Representatives. We're waiting to do as much with the Senate, with Vice President Biden, indeed with President Obama himself. And we hope that this will be somehow a renewed initiative along the lines of the Alliance for Progress that was launched so many years ago. The Merida Plan, the Columbia Plan, are examples of recent programs that have been successful. The Columbia Plan, Plan Colombia, as it's called, the Merida Plan worked very well for Columbia and for Mexico. But we're picking up the pieces because they all came home to roost in Central America. And that's what we're dealing with now. And so we're appealing to this public to understand that we will all benefit from working for peace and prosperity in Central America. Thank you so much, says the moderator. We're very grateful to both the Presidents of Guatemala and of Honduras for sharing their viewpoint, for sharing their thoughts on this intractable issue. It's a huge issue, a great problem, and we appreciate your input. Thank you also to all of you who have come. And thank you to the advisors of the embassies involved and Mr. Gurria for his help in helping us organize this important event. Many thanks to you all. We wish you every success on this visit. We are certain that you will be very busy indeed, but hope that you will find, if not the full solution, at least the beginning of the solution now. One last petition, if I may, says the President of Honduras. I think the CSIS would do something excellent for all of us, for humanity, for the US, for Central America. If you set your sights on research as to the root of this problem and what we can do best from the standpoint of research to resolve it. Thank you very much. We take good note. Thank you very much. The meeting stands adjourned.