Guatemalan president claims border walls do not work and migrants have 'right to move'

Guatemala President Bernardo Arévalo claimed border walls do not work in preventing illegal immigration in a new interview. 

"Do you think border walls work?" CBS' Ed O'Keefe asked Arévalo in an interview that aired Wednesday.

"I think that history shows they don't," Arévalo said.

"What we need to look for is integrated solutions to a problem that is far more complex than just putting a wall to try to contain," he added. 

GUATEMALA SWEARS IN BERNARDO ARÉVALO AS PRESIDENT DESPITE LAST-DITCH EFFORT TO BLOCK ELECTION RESULTS

When asked if border walls are successful at preventing illegal immigration, the new president of Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo, claimed that they do not work.  (CBS News screenshot)

"I think, in general, it is a huge mistake to dehumanize and criminalize people that are just exercising a fundamental right, the right to move," Arévalo told O'Keefe of illegal immigrants to the U.S.

Arévalo, who was elected last year, defended American investment in Guatemala as an important step to stopping the cause of mass migration to the U.S. 

"Cooperation is not sending money," he told the media outlet. "Cooperation can be by creating conditions in which we can invite you to invest in Guatemala and establish factories, work that can begin to produce and create jobs. That's fundamentally what we are most interested in." 

"We have to work to allow people, what we call, 'The right to stay.' People have a right to remain in their places. People need to find opportunities," Arévalo said. 

MEXICAN PRESIDENT SAYS THE 'FLOW OF MIGRANTS WILL CONTINUE' UNLESS THE US MEETS HIS DEMANDS

Vice President Kamala Harris met Monday with Arévalo to discuss "legal pathways" to migration. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Vice President Kamala Harris met with Arévalo Monday to discuss "legal pathways" to migration.

The pair is expected to focus on expanding "legal pathways" to migration, including the use of "safe mobility offices." The offices were rolled out across Central America last year to provide migrants with a place to access legal avenues such as refugee resettlement options and work visas. They have been cast as a key part of the administration's border strategy, which officials describe as increasing "consequences" for illegal entry while expanding legal pathways and tackling "root causes" of the migration crisis.

In his inauguration speech, Arévalo demanded for migrants crossing Guatemalan territory "dignity, respect, compassion, in the same way we will demand that Guatemalan migrants are treated abroad."

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During a "60 Minutes" interview aired on Sunday, Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador warned that unless the United States complies with Latin America’s requests for aid, the tide of migrants will continue.

In that same interview, Obrador denied that Mexican drug cartels were responsible for the fentanyl crisis in the U.S.

Fox News' Adam Shaw, Danielle Wallace and Alexander Hall contributed to this report.