President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who was placed in charge of handling the Biden border crisis, have unveiled what they are calling a plan to address the “root causes” of immigration from Mexico and the “Northern Triangle” countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.
The plan involves a major influx of humanitarian aid into the region, which they say will be a team effort, undertaken with the help of other countries, and which they believe will help address “economic inequality,” stemming the flow of migrants to the southern border.
“Senior administration officials on Wednesday broadly outlined the pillars of the Biden administration’s plan, including addressing economic insecurity and inequality, combating corruption, promoting respect for human rights, countering and preventing violence, and tackling sexual, gender-based, and domestic violence,” CNN reported.
The United States has already poured more than $250 million into the region since the Biden administration took over, but the plan is to make the contribution an even one billion. Much of the money, the administration says, will come from “strategic partners” including other governments, foundations, and non-profits.
A group of “12 companies and organizations” have “offered to provide $750 million in resources, and established a non-profit organization to support economic development efforts in the region — The Partnership for Central America,” CNN said. “These initial commitments will provide financial services to small business owners, internet access and digital banking to rural communities, housing for low-income families, and reduced barriers to higher education.”
“In Central America, the root causes of migration run deep—and migration from the region has a direct impact on the United States,” Harris said in a statement accompanying the report. “For that reason, our nation must consistently engage with the region to address the hardships that cause people to leave Central America and come to our border.”
“The strategy, according to officials, has been broken down into five pillars: addressing economic insecurity and inequality; combatting corruption, strengthening democratic governance and advancing the rule of law; promoting respect for human rights, labor rights, and a free press; countering and preventing violence, extortion, and other crimes perpetrated by criminal gangs, trafficking networks, and other organized criminal organizations; and combating sexual, gender-based and domestic violence,” Fox News added.
At the same time, the Biden administration also rolled out its general immigration goals. Notably, more intensive border security is not among the Biden administration’s priorities, even though there has been record illegal immigration this year; U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has encountered at least one million illegal immigrants so far this year and is on track to encounter two million by January of 2022.
Instead, the Biden administration says it will work with Mexico and Central American nations to “manage safe, orderly and humane migration in North and Central America.”
“The Migration Strategy includes efforts to stabilize populations with acute needs; expand access to international protection; expand access to protection in countries of origin; improve and expand temporary labor programs in the region with worker protections; assist and reintegrate returned persons; foster ‘secure and humane’ management of borders; strengthen regional public messaging about migration, and expand access to ‘lawful pathways’ for protection and opportunities in the United States,” per Fox.