In a meeting with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei, Vice President Kamala Harris, who was put in charge of handling the Biden administration’s immigration crisis last month, pledged $310 million in aid to the “Golden Triangle” of Central American countries in order to address the “root causes” of illegal immigration over United States’ southern border.
The money, Harris’s office said, will go to solve the issue of “food insecurity” that the administration claims is instrumental in driving migrants from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras to join “migrant caravans” that travel together, through Mexico, to the American border. Members of these migrant caravans often try to seek asylum, which triggers involvement from the United States Customs and Border Protection Agency, which must process each asylum seeker and assign them an immigration court hearing date.
“In light of the dire situation and acute suffering faced by millions of people in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, Vice President Harris announced an additional $310 million in U.S. government support for humanitarian relief and to address food insecurity,” according to a statement from Harris’s office.
“Of the $310 million, $255 million will go toward humanitarian relief while $55 million will address food insecurity in the region,” the New York Post added.
In addition, the United States is pledging to help Guatemala train its border patrol and improve how the country cares for migrants who are sent back or return of their own volition, according to Politico.
“The U.S. will send 16 employees of the Department of Homeland Security to aid in the effort,” the outlet reported Tuesday. “The United States will also help Guatemala to build shelters for returned migrants and help the migrants transition back to life in their home communities.”
Harris, who was assigned to handle the ongoing migrant crisis at the United States’ southern border, has instead been focusing on what she terms the “root causes” of the uptick in immigration and, on Sunday, said that she would travel to Central America to view the situation firsthand, though she has no plans to visit the United States-Mexico border.
That situation, she said, is the Department of Homeland Security’s purview.
“In her opening remarks, Harris spoke about what she described as the ‘acute causes’ of the spike in migration — hurricanes that battered the region last fall, a persistent drought, and the coronavirus pandemic — as well as ‘root causes’ like the lack of economic opportunity in the region, extreme weather conditions and government corruption,” Politico noted.
Harris did not reference President Joe Biden’s executive orders loosening the Trump administration’s immigration restrictions.
Although the issue is no longer commanding headlines in the mainstream media, the so-called child migrant crisis is ongoing. According to the Los Angeles Times, nearly 20,000 child migrants were picked up crossing the border in March — a record. The problem is not limited to children; according to National Public Radio, which leans left, more than 170,000 illegal immigrants were taken into border patrol custody during the same time period — “the highest monthly total since 2006.”