- Harris will meet with Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo on Monday afternoon to discuss immigration issues.
- Biden’s mandate has registered record numbers and has become a campaign issue
- Republicans refer to Harris as failed ‘border czar’
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Vice President Kamala Harris, in charge of protecting the United States’ borders, will meet with Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo at the White House on Monday to discuss how to reduce migration from Central America.
Immigration has become a hot-button political issue for President Joe Biden as he seeks a second term in the White House. Republicans accuse him of mismanaging border security amid a record number of crossings.
Biden’s team is countering legislation torpedoed by Republicans designed to help the issue at the behest of Donald Trump, Biden’s rival for the White House.
Biden put Harris in charge of uncovering the “root causes of migration” and the record number of crossings during her tenure led Republicans to call the vice president a failed “border czar.”
Texas State Police stand guard blocking migrants camped along the riverbank at the US-Mexico border near El Paso, Texas.
Statistics from U.S. Customs and Border Protection show that in this fiscal year alone, 961,537 border encounters have already been reported.
The year, which runs from October to September, is already on pace to beat last year’s record of 2,475,669.
In total, nearly 7.3 million immigrants have entered the country under Biden, a number larger than the population of 36 individual states, a Fox News analysis found last month.
Harris’ meeting with Arévalo also aims to boost the new liberal president’s incipient government. Arévalo’s inauguration was delayed in January by opponents seeking to weaken his authority.
A White House official told Reuters that having a government in Guatemala committed to rooting out corruption would help reduce migration.
Harris and Arévalo will discuss the Biden administration’s use of ‘safe mobility offices,’ which have been established in Guatemala, Colombia, Costa Rica and Ecuador to help mitigate the immigration problem.
The offices are designed to streamline the refugee process so that migrants apply where they are and avoid paying smugglers to make the trip north.
The vice president is also expected to announce investments of $5.2 billion in Central America. These investments include Meta’s commitment to training young people and small entrepreneurs in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
Vice President Kamala Harris (left) will meet with Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo (right) at the White House to discuss immigration issues.
US National Guard personnel reinforce a fence covered with concertina wire in the vicinity of migrants on the border with Mexico, as seen from Ciudad Juárez
Migrants huddle in the dry bed of the Grand River near El Paso, Texas.
Arévalo won the presidency in August, beating the establishment candidate by a comfortable margin.
He is the 65-year-old son of former Guatemalan President Juan José Arévalo, who is credited with implementing some of Guatemala’s key labor protections.
He has experience in academia and conflict resolution. She campaigned on a message of challenging the country’s entrenched power structure and resuming the fight against corruption.