Guatemala City, Jan 4 (EFE).- Massive detentions of migrants by U.S. authorities will not stop migration, Guatemala’s foreign minister said Monday as he confirmed the detention of 26 of his fellow citizens last weekend.

Carlos Raul Morales said in an interview on Emisoras Unidas radio that before Christmas, U.S. authorities expressed concern that the number of unaccompanied minors among immigrants did not diminish in 2015.

Some 25,000 minors from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras were deported last year, he said.

Deported in 2014 were approximately 65,000 minors from those three countries, which make up Central America’s Northern Triangle.

Morales said that Guatemala’s response to the concern of U.S. authorities was categorical: “Either we work together to prevent migration and make economic opportunities available in their country of origin, or we’re not going to stop them from migrating.”

He added that an operation was launched at the end of the year to find some 300 Guatemalans who entered the U.S. since January 2014 and for whom final deportation orders have been issued.

Twenty-six of them were detained in Texas, but “they didn’t tell us if they were going to keep looking for the others,” he said.

Morales said that Guatemala rejects the massive detentions because “it’s not the way we’ll achieve results in matters of migration, because of the contribution migrants make both to their countries of origin and to their adopted country.”

In fact, during the first 11 months of 2015, Guatemalan emigrants sent hom a record total of $5.69 billion in remittances to their families, compared with $5.54 billion in all of 2014.

“What we asked (of the U.S.) was that we implement the Alliance for Prosperity Plan as soon as possible because “if we keep putting off the execution of the plan, we’re obviously not going to stop migration,” he said.

Morales hailed the United States as an ally in the matter, but “we’re the ones who have work to do,” since the U.S. Congress is going to ask for an accounting of the $750 million it has approved for the three countries, he said. EFE