(UnitedVoice.com) – President Joe Biden is still grappling with what to do about the Southern border. Millions of migrants have crossed into the US since he took office in January 2021. A few months into the crisis, the POTUS handed the problem over to Vice President Kamala Harris, much like former President Barack Obama did when he tasked Biden to deal with the unaccompanied minor surge during his administration.
The vice president has faced quite a bit of criticism for allegedly not doing enough to combat the crisis. Harris is now celebrating a victory — while migrants continue to pour across the border.
Harris Celebrates
On February 6, Harris hosted the Central America Forward Launch Event in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the root causes of migration from the Northern Triangle. During her remarks, she boasted that private companies had donated an additional $956 million to target the root cause of the immigration crisis.
The new donations brought the total money generated by the Partnership for Central America to over $3.2 billion. According to Harris, the investments made by the private sector have helped create jobs, allowed small businesses to thrive, and helped increase access to the financial system for residents of Central America.
The vice president celebrated the success of the partnership, saying that the Department of Homeland Security has reported migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras is down. Meanwhile, the investments generated by the administration’s Root Causes Strategy have brought more than 1 million people “into the formal financial economy, including 65,000 people who now have bank accounts,” and 4 million have internet access in the countries.
Elephant in the Room
Although the private sector is making record investments in Central America and migration is down from there, immigrants are still flowing across US borders. Customs and Border Protection data shows 2,378,944 immigrants crossed into America through the Southern Border in fiscal year 2022.
Further, migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, Ecuador, and other countries have fled to America in record numbers. Ironically, the migration from those countries created an economic boon in Central America that Harris did not mention in her speech. In December 2022, The Guardian reported one of the towns that have experienced the benefits of illegal migration from South America and other places is Trojes, Honduras. A street vendor in the city, Osman Salinas, told the outlet, “Almost everyone benefits, it’s a blessing.”
Everyone except the American people. They are the ones who are left with the bill when the waves of migrants leave towns like Trojes and flood across the US border, overwhelming schools, hospitals, immigration detention centers, and local governments. But that was also left out of Harris’ victory speech.
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