Last updated on August 29th, 2024 at 09:51 am
Washington: Vice President Kamala Harris, appointed to address the root causes of migration from Central America amid rising illegal border crossings in 2021, encountered significant obstacles in her mission. The region’s pervasive corruption, economic inequality, and social issues compounded the difficulty, and she lacked direct control over border policies.
Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee and co-author of a bipartisan border security bill introduced earlier this year.
Former President Donald Trump, a Republican presidential candidate, has intensified his attacks on Harris, labeling her a failed “border czar” amid her emergence as the likely Democratic nominee following President Joe Biden’s decision not to seek reelection.
However, Harris was never officially assigned the role of border czar, according to Alan Bersin, who previously held a similar position under Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
Instead, Biden tasked Harris with leading diplomatic efforts to reduce poverty, violence, and corruption in Central America’s Northern Triangle countries—Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador—as well as engaging with Mexico on migration issues.
Complicating the issue further, illegal immigration from countries like Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela spiked shortly after Harris took on the role, making the focus on the Northern Triangle seem misplaced, several former officials and experts noted. Supreme Court decision that overturned the nationwide right to an abortion.
In March, the White House announced that Harris had helped secure $4 billion in government aid and commitments of $5.2 billion in private investment to create or support approximately 250,000 jobs in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Notable initiatives included Nespresso sourcing coffee from El Salvador and Honduras and Gap Inc’s pledge to invest $150 million in the region by 2025, including increased yarn production and skills training for women.
However, Ricardo Barrientos, director of the Central American Institute of Fiscal Studies think tank, noted that the U.S.
“It’s very small compared to the magnitude of the challenge,” he said.
By May, the number of migrants from the Northern Triangle caught crossing illegally had fallen to 25,000 from a peak of 90,000 in July 2021, although the impact of Harris’ efforts remains unclear.
Challenges as ‘Border Czar’
Harris made two trips to Central America—Guatemala in June 2021 and Honduras in January 2022—one fewer than Biden made to Guatemala after he was assigned a similar role in 2014. Meanwhile, Republicans criticized Harris for rising illegal crossings and called on her to visit the border.
During her six-hour visit, Harris toured a migrant processing center and spoke with a group of girls but did not tour the border wall on foot, as Trump officials routinely did.
The White House claimed Ortiz had been invited to join Biden in El Paso last year and did not attend, but Ortiz contested this, stating he was not invited.
Liability or Asset?
Immigration ranks as the third-highest concern among U.S. voters, following the economy and extremism, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll in June. Voters favored Trump’s approach to immigration over Biden’s by 44%-31%.
Some immigration advocates hope that Harris, the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, would better understand the humanitarian side of the issue. Harris played a crucial role in the Biden administration’s rollout of a program in June that offers a path to citizenship for immigrants in the U.S. illegally who are married to U.S. citizens, according to two people familiar with the matter.