Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday said that her long-awaited trip to Mexico and Central America as migration czar will finally happen on June 7-8.
President Biden appointed Harris in March as his point person on stemming a migrant crisis along the US-Mexico border, but she has faced sustained Republican criticism over her lack of relevant travel.
“Currently, the plan is for me to travel to Mexico and Guatemala on June 7 and 8. And I’m very much looking forward to that trip,” Harris told reporters during a trip to Rhode Island.
Harris has spoken twice with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei and is scheduled to hold her second conversation this week with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Harris said Tuesday at a web conference of Western Hemisphere leaders that there’s an “alarming” influx of migrants along the US-Mexico border, but that the problem cannot be solved without cleaning up corruption in Central America.
“Citizens of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras are leaving their homes at alarming rates,” Harris told the annual Washington Conference on the America
“No matter how much effort we put in on curbing violence, providing disaster relief, on tackling food insecurity — on any of it — we will not make significant progress if corruption in the region persists,” Harris said.
“If corruption persists, history has told us, it will be one step forward and two steps back. And we know corruption causes government institutions to collapse from within.”
Biden named Harris as his migration czar in March amid a 20-year high in illegal border crossings driven by an increase in families and unaccompanied minors from the three- country “Northern Triangle” — El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.
The White House later took pains to emphasize that Harris would only address the “root causes” of migration and not border enforcement as children were crowded into cramped, jail-like facilities.
In public remarks, Harris has attributed migration to a wide range of “push” factors, including hurricane damage, global warming, poverty, racial discrimination and gang violence.
Republicans attribute the migrant surge to Biden border policy changes and say Biden-backed legislation that would allow citizenship for most illegal immigrants creates new “pull” factors.
In February, Biden terminated former President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy that required Central American asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while US courts reviewed their claims.