Protesters decried the absence of leaders from Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Nicaragua and other countries. But some suggest that countries that skipped the summit are hurting their own people.
“President AMLO, here are your people!” a cluster of Mexican immigrants shouted. “We love you, AMLO,” one poster declared.
The demonstration, which started at noon at Pershing Square, was organized by AMLO enthusiasts as well as organizations pressing President Biden to place the issue of immigration reform at the center of his administration’s agenda.Biden flew into Los Angeles on Wednesday to formally open the summit by extolling democracy throughout the hemisphere, while downplaying tensions stemming from the White House’s decision to exclude the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the event.
But other demonstrators expressed dismay that AMLO had chosen to skip the summit in sympathy with excluded autocrats such as Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. “I hoped that President Xiomara Castro would not sweat someone else’s fever,” said Cecilia Rodríguez, president of the Honduran Alliance of Los Angeles. “It is an opportunity that she has missed.”
Yet the absence of heads of state including Bukele, Castro, Ortega and Alejandro Giammattei of Guatemala worries organizations that push for human rights, freedom of information, transparency and accountability, in part because the authoritarian traits of these governments have fueled migration.
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