Today a letter from over 100 grassroots organizations from the U.S., Mexico, and Canada was sent to President Joe Biden, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urging action on gun violence, climate change, and immigration policies across the region. The letter comes just days before the January 9 – 10 “Tres Amigos” Summit in Mexico City when the three North American leaders will meet to discuss immigration, energy policies, and other urgent topics.
Signatories represent communities who suffer disproportionately from policies around these issues, including victims of gun violence, migrants, and Afrodescendant and Indigenous Peoples across all three nations. Organizational leaders from Black Lives Matter, March for Our Lives, Global Exchange, 350.org, and Amazon Watch are among the signatories. (Read the full letter and list of signatories here.)
“From the Arctic Circle to the border of Guatemala, climate disasters, gun violence, and poverty-related circumstances are forcing people to leave their homes in search of a safe place to live,” says the letter. “Families throughout the region want to stay home but must relocate as a matter of survival. Sadly, federal entities in Mexico and the U.S. detain and deport many of them, or criminal organizations kill them, en route to safer places to live.”
Signatories want to see measures taken to end U.S. gun exports and trafficking, hold gun manufacturers accountable for crimes committed with their weapons, and adopt alternatives to policing and the violent war on drugs.
In the U.S., more Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2020 than in any other year on record, the letter notes. In Mexico, guns caused nearly 70 percent of the 35,625 homicides in 2021; and between 70 to 90 percent of guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico can be traced back to the U.S. And in Canada, from 2007 to 2017, First Nations (Indigenous communities) accounted for one-third of people shot to death by national police officers.
“Our right to grow up matters and that’s something that’s been stolen from us on both sides of the border,” said Isabella D’Allacio, a federal policy associate for March for Our Lives who grew up in Parkland, Florida, which experienced a tragic school shooting in 2018. “It’s important for the leaders of Canada, the U.S., and Mexico to not see borders in this conversation, but rather human life, and how people are impacted by gun policies.”
The letter also addresses how climate change and environmental degradation are impacting people of color, low-income communities, women, and Indigenous Peoples the hardest. The increased frequency and severity of forest fires, extreme heat, storms, and floods are displacing these communities and threatening their livelihoods and ways of life.
“We are among the first to feel the consequences of climate change in Canada,” said Melissa Iakowi:he’ne’ Oakes, a Mohawk woman and the executive director of the North American Indigenous Center of New York who signed the letter. “It affects our ancestral lands, which affects our food security, economies, culture, and identities, and worsens the health inequities we’re already experiencing.”
Finally, signatories are asking the three leaders to address the immigration crisis. “North America is one of the deadliest regions in the world for migrants, with 2022 setting a record number of migrant deaths at the Mexico-U.S. border,” says the letter. “International agreements to protect migrants from violence have been ignored and undermined, leaving thousands of families stranded at borders as a result.”
Today’s letter was spearheaded by the nonprofit organization Global Exchange in the lead-up to a Peace Summit in Mexico City on February 23 – 24th, 2023, where many of the signatories will meet to discuss how to mobilize around these issues. According to the letter, the allied organizations intend to develop a multinational action agenda and focus on the 2024 elections in the United States and Mexico “to create the world we deserve.”
The letter concludes: “These circumstances are unacceptable, unfair, and unsustainable. We urge you to use your power to end the proliferation of gun violence and the militarized drug war; stop the destructive impacts of pollution and climate change that disproportionately impact people of color and low-income communities; and support migrant populations with compassionate immigration policies, rather than criminalization.”
