Supporters of the vice president’s campaign for the White House continue to push back against Trump campaign claims that Kamala Harris was “border czar” — and therefore is responsible for the ongoing migrant surge — by arguing she was only in charge of addressing the “root causes” of illegal immigration from the three “Northern Triangle” countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
Taking that claim at face value, it would be important to examine how effective the Veep’s efforts have been. In the case of Honduras, the news isn't great. Let’s just say that the pope is complaining about what’s happening there, and Cuba’s official media outlet is attempting to bolster the current government of President Xiomara Castro — whom Harris met with in January 2022 — following street protests against corruption allegations.
Root Causes, in Brief. Immigration experts generally break the various reasons why individuals migrate from one place to another into two separate categories: “push factors” — issues like famine, poverty, corruption, and violence — that encourage would-be emigrants to leave; and “pull factors”, policies and opportunities that offer the promise of a better life and improved economic circumstances elsewhere.
“Root causes”, as I explained in August, 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.]
Vice President’s Trip to Honduras. The vice president made two trips to the Northern Triangle as part of her roots-causes portfolio: one to Guatemala City and Mexico City in June 2021, during which she met with the respective presidents of those countries and other local government officials; and one to the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa in January 2022, during which she met with Castro, the recently inaugurated president of that country.
According to the White House readout of that latter meeting, Harris and Castro “discussed deepening our cooperation across a broad range of issues, including addressing the root causes of migration, combatting corruption, and expanding economic opportunity”.
Corruption and impunity, and relatedly economic opportunities, were all apparently high on the agenda 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 relationship between good governance and economic growth is obvious, because corruption drives away foreign investment and impunity makes it more difficult for domestic enterprises to do business and thrive.
Ongoing Corruption and Impunity in Honduras. An objective assessment of ongoing events in Honduras suggests that President Castro’s promises may have been somewhat empty, as things appear to be getting worse on the good governance front there.
The first sign of trouble appeared in June 2023, when Gabriela Castellanos, director of Honduran NGO the “National Anti-Corruption Council” (CNA) fled the country “due to threats”. She left 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”.
Zelaya himself had been arrested and forced into exile from the country in June 2009 following a coup. As The Guardian (UK) explained at the time:
Zelaya was detained shortly before voting was to begin on a constitutional referendum the president had insisted on holding, even though the supreme court ruled it illegal and everyone from the military to congress and members of his own party opposed it.
. . .
The nonbinding referendum was to ask voters if they wanted a vote during the November presidential election on whether to convoke an assembly to rewrite the constitution.
Critics of Zelaya claimed he wanted to rewrite the country’s constitution to eliminate a provision therein limiting presidents to a four-year term. Talks on his return to power broke down, but Zelaya eventually returned to Honduras in 2011 after corruption charges against him were dropped.
It’s safe to say the family’s political prospects have brightened since.
In addition to Castro’s ascent to the presidency, Americas Quarterly reported in March that one of Castro’s children was her private secretary, another was in the Honduran congress, her brother-in-law (Carlos Zelaya) was secretary of the congress, and his son (José Manuel Zelaya) was the defense minister.
On September 4, CNA’s Castellanos sent a public letter to Castro, demanding the president resign “based on the serious accusations of drug trafficking that have been presented against [her] family, whom [she had] appointed to work in the State”.
As AP explained:
The demand comes after a rocky week for Castro, who won the presidency on an anti-corruption campaign.
The day before the letter was sent, a video recorded in 2013 was released purportedly showing drug traffickers currently imprisoned in the United States offering more than $525,000 to the president’s brother-in-law and congressional leader, Carlos Zelaya.
As I noted in early September, the timing of the video’s release was curious, coming just six days after Honduras announced it was ending its (1912) extradition treaty with the United States in the wake of criticism by U.S. Ambassador Laura Dogu about a meeting between Honduran and Venezuelan officials.
The New York Times claimed the U.S. ambassador had told reporters “she was ‘surprised’ to see Honduras’s defense minister and a top general” — Roosevelt Leonel Hernández — “seated next to a narco-trafficker in Venezuela”.
While the report is not entirely clear, the “narco-trafficker” in question is apparently Venezuelan defense chief Gen. Vladimir Padrino López, who was indicted in federal court in the District of Columbia for conspiring to smuggle cocaine in 2019.
Even more curious is Honduras’s rationale for halting extraditions to the United States. According to the Times, the Honduran foreign minister took that step fearing the treaty “could be used as a ‘political weapon’” by the United States — which is not what one would expect from a root-causes partner.
That’s especially true inasmuch as extraditions to the United States have been a key instrument in Honduras’s battle against corruption.
As ABC News reported on September 2: “64 Hondurans have been extradited to the U.S., largely on drug trafficking charges. Among those was former president [Juan Orlando] Hernández.”
Hernandez — Castro’s immediate predecessor — received a 45-year sentence in U.S. prison and an $8 million fine in June “for teaming up with some bribe-paying drug traffickers for over a decade to ensure over 400 tons of cocaine made it to the United States”.
Notably, both Carlos Zelaya and his son, José Manuel Zelaya, stepped down from their respective posts days after the decision to terminate the extradition treaty was made.
Street Protests and Cuba’s Support. Termination of the treaty triggered protests in Honduras, with thousands organized by a group called the “Citizen Army of Peace” taking to the streets, claiming Castro’s Libre Party wants to form a Venezuelan-style dictatorship, and alleging Castro was ending the treaty to protect herself and her family.
President Castro had blamed “dark forces” — both domestic and international — seeking to launch yet another coup for the release of the Carlos Zelaya video, explaining: “The plan to destroy my socialist and democratic government and the upcoming election is underway.”
Speaking of socialists, Radio Havana Cuba — the official international news organ of that island nation’s government — has come to the Honduran president’s defense. As per an article it ran on September 15:
In the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, the people rallied to support President Xiomara Castro after the recent coup attempts directed from the United States and activated by the ambassador of that country in Honduras, Laura Dogu.
The call comes after the president stated in early September that a plan is underway to destroy her government, while assuring that the peace and internal security of the Republic was at risk due to the American interference in the Central American country.
. . .
On Saturday morning, tens of thousands gathered in front of the Presidential House to express their solidarity with president Castro and their rejection to the coup attempt and U.S. interventionism. [Emphasis added.]
I would take anything from Radio Havana with a grain of salt, but that report plainly suggests neither Havana nor Tegucigalpa is entirely pleased with U.S. government efforts in Honduras — and foreign aid aside, likely rejects the vice president’s “root causes” anti-corruption calls.
The Pope Weighs in on the Killing of Juan Lopez. Street protests — either for or against her government — are not the only issue President Castro is dealing with.
AP reports that Juan Lopez — an environmental leader with the Network Against Anti-Union Violence (RedContraVA) — was murdered on September 14, in the Honduran municipality of Tocoa, the fourth RedContraVA activist to be killed in the past two years.
López’s killing triggered strong international condemnation, with the UN calling for “competent authorities to carry out an immediate, exhaustive and impartial investigation to identify and punish the people responsible, both material and intellectual, for this murder”, and even Pope Francis weighing in.
Following religious services on Sunday, the pope stated:
I have learned with sorrow that Juan Antonio López has been killed in Honduras . ... Coordinator of social pastoral care in the Diocese of Trujillo, he was a founding member of the pastoral care of integral ecology in Honduras. ... I join in the grief of that church and condemn every form of violence. ... I am close to all those who see their fundamental rights violated and to those who work for the common good in response to the cry of the poor and the earth.
President Castro has herself referred to Lopez’s death as a “vile murder” and has promised to answer international demands for an investigation, but as the Washington Post explains:
Environmental leaders often act as watchdogs in rural regions, becoming an unwanted pair of eyes in places where organized crime thrives.
They also tend to challenge powerful companies and individuals seeking to profit from industries like mining and logging, doing so in remote swaths of Latin America far from the reach of the law.
It’s not clear whether Xiomara Castro supports or opposes “powerful companies and individuals seeking to profit from industries like mining and logging” in Honduras, but given how the president has handled corruption in her country generally, I’m not entirely sure she can direct the “competent authorities” to carry out the sort of investigation of Lopez’s murder the UN is calling for.
Much has been said about Vice President Kamala Harris’s role in addressing the root causes of illegal migration, but few have examined whether her efforts in that role have been successful. If anyone’s curious, they may want to check out what’s happening in Honduras — or just tune into Radio Havana.