PROVIDENCE — The vice minister of foreign relations for Guatemala, who visited Rhode Island for an annual breakfast held Friday by the Center for Hispanic Policy and Advocacy, expressed hope at the news that the U.S. Senate had reached an agreement that would offer legal status to many of this country’s 12-million undocumented immigrants.

CHisPA invited Vice Minister Marta Altolaguirre Larraondo, Carlos Avila Sandoval, the consul general of Guatemala in Rhode Island, and Rodrigo Marquez, deputy consul of Mexico in Boston, to talk at a breakfast, held at the Crowne Plaza in Warwick, about issues facing immigrants.

While the bipartisan immigration bill faces an uphill battle, CHisPA’s executive director, Miguel Sanchez-Hartwein, told about 400 attendees of the breakfast to contact their representatives and push for immigration reform this year before presidential elections come along and people take their focus off it.

Sanchez said that many people who leave their home countries to come here do not intend to stay. They come because of lack of employment in their countries. He said 63 percent return to their own countries because they were able to raise money here by working.

Vice Minister Altolaguirre said that of 30 million Guatemalans, 10 percent have come to the United States.

“Why do they leave? We have insufficient jobs. The opportunity for studying is insufficient. We are neighbors. You have a progressive country with older, well-educated people not willing to do physical jobs. Guatemalans are less educated, willing to do those jobs that are offered. It’s jobs versus the demand,” Altolaguirre said.

Forced immigration, says Altolaguirre, is what makes people vulnerable to inhumane treatment.

“We want to be able to provide for our people,” Altolaguirre said. “We don’t want them to leave. Why don’t we work on a rational program where people can overcome poverty in a short period while you get the services you need.”

“If we had a program where people could come here and work for a period of time and send money back home, the U.S. would know who is here and where they are working. We would have support and guarantees to human rights. Let’s try to get this agreement for migratory reform through,” Altolaguirre said.

Altolaguirre said her government understands the U.S. need for border control. “We also have terrorism in our country, except in our case it was Guatemalans,” she said.

Politically, Guatemala is very stable. The country has had 21 years of democratic government and will hold elections in September in which Nobel Peace Prize winner and indigenous activist Rigoberta Menchu will run for president. Her candidacy is proof that the country has changed, Altolaguirre said. Twenty years ago her candidacy would have gotten her killed.

The country has one of the lowest rates of external debts in the hemisphere. “It is a great county for you to come over to invest,” Altolaguirre said.

tpina@projo.com