Despite coordinating the investment of more than $5 billion in public and private investments to increase employment opportunities and reduce corruption in Central America, Vice President Kamala Harris’s efforts to stem the flow of migrants across the southwest border have failed miserably. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, more than 500 thousand unaccompanied migrant children arrived at the United States border with Mexico since the Biden-Harris administration took office.
Although the vice president made attempts to distance herself from the unofficial title of “Border Czar,” her role was publicly announced by President Biden during a March 2021 White House briefing, the president assigned the lead immigration role to the vice president during his remarks, stating, “In addition to that, there’s about five other major things she’s handling, but I’ve asked her, the VP, today — because she’s the most qualified person to do it — to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and the countries that help — are going to need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border.”
According to CBP, between October 2023 and June 2024, more than 90,000 unaccompanied migrant children were encountered at the southwest border. According to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), approximately 80 percent of those migrant children were from the same Central American countries receiving the more than $5 billion in investments coordinated by Vice President Harris during her tenure as lead border strategist in the Biden-Harris administration.
During fiscal year 2020, the last full year of the Trump administration, the number of unaccompanied migrant children apprehended at the southwest border was slightly more than 30,000. Immigration enforcement policies enacted under the Trump administration, such as the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as “Remain in Mexico”, and the Title 42 COVID-19 emergency expulsion program, may have served as a deterrent to parents abandoning their children at the border.
According to a 2020 CBS news report, during May 2020, only 39 unaccompanied migrant children of the 1,001 arrested at the border were not removed from the United States under Trump’s Title 42 Covid removal program. More than 96 percent of all unaccompanied migrant children that month were swiftly expelled from the United States.
Shortly after assuming office, the Biden-Harris administration canceled several Trump-era immigration enforcement policies and prohibited authorities from deporting unaccompanied migrant children under Title 42 except for Mexican nationals. The move to discontinue the removal of unaccompanied children at the southwest border saw the number of encounters for unaccompanied migrant children rise from 1,001 in May 2020 to nearly 19,000 in March 2021, a nearly 2,000 percent increase.
In February 2023, Vice President Harris touted her accomplishment of facilitating more than $3.2 billion in private investments for the three Central American Countries. At a White House press briefing on reducing root causes of migration, Harris told attendees, “This summer, at the Summit of Americas in Los Angeles, I announced that, working with the Partnership for Central America, we generated more than $3.2 billion in investments.”
By March 2024, Harris announced in another briefing her efforts in the Central American Northern Triangle had resulted in investments totaling $5.2 billion to create jobs and stability as an answer to the root causes of migration. Outlining the purpose of her efforts, the lead border strategist told reporters, “These investments are creating jobs, connecting people to the digital economy, expanding access to financing for small businesses, providing training and education for youth, women, and workers, and improving economic livelihoods for people in the region.”
Harris went on to say, “These investments are materializing into tangible opportunities for families and communities across integrated supply chains in Central America and the United States – benefiting students, employees, entrepreneurs, and families – and shaping a model for mobilizing private sector commitments through collective action to drive economic development.”
What the Vice President failed to say, however, is that the creation of jobs has not resulted in any material change in the dismal wages paid by investors moving into the region. The monthly minimum wages in El Salvador have remained unchanged since 2020 and stand at $365 per month, or roughly $12.00 per day. In Honduras, the monthly minimum wage is $327 followed by Guatemala at $436.
It appears the investments coordinated by Harris to improve living conditions for the Central American Northern Triangle countries did little to raise wages or discourage migrant parents from abandoning their children at the U.S. southern border. According to a source within CBP, the practice, on many occasions, allows the parents to enter the United States illegally shortly afterward to claim the child and gain release into the United States.
The move did perhaps allow corporations to take advantage of the dismal wages paid to workers in the region from which, more than $33 billion in products are imported to the United States annually. That total, according to Statista.Com, includes $14 billion in petroleum and related products, $4 billion in vehicles, $4 billion in medical products and medicines, and $3 billion in communications equipment.
Vice President Harris also failed to mention the lax vetting of unaccompanied minors released at the southern border. As reported by Breitbart, in January 2023, authorities arrested an MS-13 gang member suspected of murdering Kayla Marie Hamilton, a 20-year-old with autism, in Aberdeen, Maryland. According to police, Hamilton was strangled by the 17-year-old El Salvadoran migrant who was released as an unaccompanied migrant child at the southwest border. The failure to properly investigate the background of unaccompanied migrant children has allowed some adult migrants to claim juvenile status to secure release.
One such case involves 24-year-old Yery Noel Medina Ulloa of Honduras, who posed as an unaccompanied migrant child to get released into the United States. Authorities allege the migrant was sent to live with a sponsor in Florida whom he later was suspected of killing. Prosecutors in the case allege Ulloa murdered 46-year-old Francisco Javier Cuellar, a father of four, in November 2021.
The vetting for sponsors to care for migrant children released into the United States does not seem to be any more robust, according to some internal agency documents. Earlier this month, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) released internal records revealing the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sent two unaccompanied migrant children to a household connected to the violent MS-13 gang. Grassley issued a statement on the matter, saying, “The records I’m releasing today are the kind the government fights tooth and nail to withhold from the public, and they ought to send a chill up every person’s spine.”
Grassley went on to say the incident is one of thousands of cases that contain evidence of potential child trafficking.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @RandyClarkBBTX.
