While critics — and more than a few media outlets — have described Vice President Kamala Harris as the administration’s “border czar”, her allies maintain she’s only responsible for addressing the “root causes” of illegal migration, and even then, only migration from the “Northern Triangle” nations of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. There’s both less and a whole lot more to the Harris root-causes strategy than meets the eye. Let me decode it for you, first by laying out the vice president’s efforts in support of the strategy and the elements of the plan.
“Push” and “Pull” Factors and “Root Causes”, in Brief. Immigration experts generally agree that there are two separate reasons why individuals migrate from one place to another: “push factors” — issues like poverty, corruption, and violence — that encourage would-be emigrants to leave their homes, and “pull factors”, policies and opportunities that offer the promise of a better life and improved economic circumstances elsewhere.
“Root causes” is just a different way of referring to push factors, specifically as it relates to illegal migration.
In her cover letter to a July 2021 National Security Council (NSC) white paper captioned “U.S. Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America”, the vice president explained:
The COVID-19 pandemic and extreme weather conditions have indeed exacerbated the root causes of migration — which include corruption, violence, trafficking, and poverty. While our Administration is proud that we have sent millions of vaccine doses and hurricane relief, we know that it is not enough to alleviate suffering in the long term.
The root causes must be addressed both in addition to relief efforts — and apart from these efforts. In everything we do, we must target our efforts in those areas of highest out-migration — and ensure that these programs meet the highest standards of accountability and effectiveness. [Emphasis added.]
I will return to those highlighted portions of the excerpt in Part Two.
Harris’ Root Causes Efforts. As I explained on July 25, the vice president made just two trips to the Northern Triangle in support of the migration portfolio President Biden assigned her in late March 2021.
The first trip, in June 2021, took her initially to Mexico City, where she met with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO).
According to the White House readout from that meeting, Harris and AMLO addressed the “root causes of migration” from the Northern Triangle and joined the two nations in “a new strategic partnership to share information and strategies and co-manage new programs to foster economic opportunity through agricultural development and youth empowerment”.
In addition, “The two leaders also agreed to increase cooperation to further secure our borders and ensure orderly immigration.”
From Mexico City, Harris traveled to Guatemala City, where she met with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei.
At the end of that meeting, the vice president highlighted the two leader’s discussions:
First, on the issue of security — it’s probably one of the highest priorities for each of our nations — the President and I agreed to continue our work to manage migration at Guatemala’s northern and southern borders. We also discussed illicit drugs that are being smuggled and humans who are being trafficked across those borders, undermining the security of both the people of Guatemala and the people of the United States.
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Second, on economic development: The President and I also discussed the root causes of migration, in particular the lack of economic opportunity for many people here in Guatemala. ... We will launch a young women’s empowerment initiative to increase education and economic opportunities for girls and women ... .
We will also invest in agribusiness and affordable housing and supporting entrepreneurs. President Giammattei has mentioned to me many times today and in previous conversations about his priority around what can happen in terms of the planting of trees and what that can mean in terms of ecology and in our environment ... .
I will also continue to work with CEOs around the world to encourage investment in Guatemala ... .
Which brings me to our third area of discussion and agreement. The President and I discussed the importance of anti-corruption and the importance of an independent judiciary.
The United States will create an anti-corruption task force — the first of its kind. Our Justice Department, our Treasury Department, and our State Department will work together to conduct investigations and train local law enforcement to conduct their own. [Emphasis added.]
In late January 2022, Harris took her second and last trip to the Northern Triangle, to Tegucigalpa for the inauguration of Honduran President Xiomara Castro.
According to the White House readout of that meeting, the two “discussed deepening our cooperation across a broad range of issues, including addressing the root causes of migration, combatting corruption, and expanding economic opportunity”.
Corruption, impunity, and economic opportunities were apparently the main topics at that meeting, as the readout states:
Vice President Harris emphasized that combating corruption and impunity remains at the center of our commitment to address the root causes of migration. To that end, Vice President Harris welcomed President Castro’s focus on countering corruption and impunity ... . They also discussed ways the United States and Honduras can work together to promote an equitable and inclusive economic recovery by stimulating economic growth and creation of good jobs. The United States committed to a senior-level trade mission and business delegation led by the Department of Commerce to generate business opportunities in Honduras as part of the U.S. government’s Call to Action, which the Vice President announced in May and which has generated more than $1.2 billion in private sector investment in the region.
As I explained on June 30, however, Honduras still has a way to go on impunity and corruption, given the director of the National Anti-Corruption Council (CNA) fled the country last June “due to threats”, not long after CNA “warned of the dangers posed by a ‘concentration of power’ from government posts going to the sons and other relatives of Castro and her husband, former President Manuel Zelaya”.
Components of the Root Causes Strategy. Much of that root causes strategy has focused on economic development, in the form of hundreds of millions in U.S. aid to the region and “more than $1.2 billion” in investment commitments from such companies as Microsoft, Nespresso, and PepsiCo “to create new jobs and opportunities for people in the region”.
In addition, the vice president has secured assistance from South Korea, Japan, and Israel to invest in or provide technical assistance to the region.
There are also anti-smuggling and anti-corruption components to that strategy, plus law-enforcement assistance, gender-based violence reform efforts, and attempts to expand reintegration programs.
Interestingly, that strategy also includes U.S. visa sanctions on “officials in El Salvador and Guatemala in connection with public corruption” under two separate federal statutes, and on “the issuance of visas to current or former Guatemalan, Honduran, or Salvadoran government officials and other individuals believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, undermining democracy or the rule of law” under “Section 212(1)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act [INA]”.
The problem is that there is no section 212(a)(3)(C) in the INA, and I am unable to find any provision that matches that description.
What About the Pull Factors? As my colleague Mark Krikorian recently explained to AP, the biggest issue with a border migration strategy that focuses strictly on root causes is that: “Even if it worked, it’s the sort of thing that takes generations, not one term.”
With that in mind, the question becomes what the Biden-Harris administration has done to address pull factors, the ones that draw migrants to enter the United States illegally. That answer is complicated, but I will lay it all out in Part Two.