Guatemala and the US agree to strengthen surveillance on the border with Mexico.

TUXTLA GUTIÉRREZ, Chil. (apro).- The Guatemalan government announced an agreement with the United States to strengthen security on the border with Mexico.

This pact seeks to combat illicit trafficking in people, drugs, and weapons, and focuses on the implementation of anti-narcotics border patrols and the reactivation of joint patrols between the Army and the Guatemalan National Civil Police, especially in border areas.

"The agreement includes a specialized joint security group, where the United States and Guatemalan governments will deploy their security forces and armed forces at strategic locations to develop intervention strategies in border areas," reported Guatemalan Deputy Minister of Security José Rolando Portillo.

The agreement "will strengthen border security, not only in Guatemala, but also in the countries of the region," Portillo added.

The security official said: "We must understand that crime and organized crime are transnational phenomena, and from this perspective, joint collaboration between different governments is important."

He noted that the strategy encompasses the entire border area, El Petén, El Quiché, the area where Ixcan is located, and everything that borders Mexico, such as the departments of Huehuetenango and San Marcos. "We have to have the police, we have to collaborate with the Army to maintain border security."

On the Mexican side, the border stretches across the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, and Campeche. The border follows stretches of the Usumacinta, Salinas, and Suchiate rivers.

In Guatemalan territory, the specialized group will monitor airports, in addition to border areas where they will contain them. Portillo added that members of the National Civil Police specialized in counternarcotics and gang issues, as well as those specializing in human trafficking, are also included.

Mexico and Guatemala reactivate high-level group after Chiapas police raid

For their part, officials from the Chiapas government reported the reactivation of the High Level Security Group between the two nations; "There is an intensification of this group's activity, especially after incidents on the border that have highlighted the need for closer coordination," they revealed.

The GANSEG, they noted, is a crucial mechanism for bilateral cooperation on the southern border, particularly in the Chiapas region. Its main objective is to jointly address security, migration, and development challenges in this shared region; however, the group did not meet during the entire administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

On June 8, members of the Chiapas Immediate Reaction Force (PAKAL) entered Guatemalan territory in the Cuauhtémoc-La Mesilla border area during a pursuit of organized crime members. This incident arose following an armed confrontation with the police on the Mexican side of the border that left five police officers burned to death.

These types of cooperation agreements are not new; the United States, Guatemala, and Mexico have all worked on various initiatives to manage migration and border security. Agreements have been signed in the past to increase border security personnel, establish checkpoints, and improve intelligence sharing to detect the activities of transnational criminal organizations.

For migrant rights organizations, the primary goal of these efforts is to make the journey more difficult for migrants attempting to reach the United States irregularly, as well as to address the root causes of migration.