‘Border Czar’ Harris says private companies have spent $4.2 BILLION investing in Central America

Private companies have now invested $4.2 billion in northern Central America under the Biden administration, a welcome investment that the White House attributes to Vice President Kamala Harris’ work to address the “root causes” of migration.

That number is up from $3.2 billion last year and includes money from retailers like Target and Columbia Sportswear, among 45 other companies.

The announcement comes just as Harris is expected to meet with business and government leaders in Washington on Monday to launch a new effort called Centroamérica Adelante, focused on economic development and labor rights, as well as a push to combat corruption, he said. an administration official on a call with journalists.

President Biden named Harris to lead efforts to reduce migration at the US-Mexico border in March 2021, making her the target of conservative ire as migration numbers continued to rise until record levels.

As pressure mounted for Harris to visit the border, the White House later clarified that Harris was only tasked with addressing the “root causes” of migration, such as crime and poverty.

Columbia committed to purchase $200 million worth of products, creating 6,900 jobs in the region over five years. Millicom committed to investing an additional $350 million in broadband by 2025, on top of its commitment of $700 million for 2023 and 2024.

Nestlé and Nescafé have pledged to support more than 7,500 coffee producers, while the Honduran Coffee Company and Grupo Cadelga have pledged to partner with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to help more than 10,000 coffee producers. coffee.

Harris focused his efforts on increasing investment in the northern triangle countries: El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

However, concerns over corruption have led companies to pull out of investments worth millions of dollars.

Arrivals from the Northern Triangle countries have declined since mid-2021, while migration from other regions has skyrocketed.

In December, US officials counted 42,637 meetings with Cubans and 35,389 meetings with Nicaraguans, all-time monthly highs for both nationalities. In total, border agents processed citizens of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador just 33,000 times in total.

Border officials had been preparing to end Title 42, a Covid-era CDC emergency order that allowed immediate removal, in December, but the Supreme Court put those plans on hold while it considers a request from states led by the Republican Party who want the Trump- politics of the time to be left in place.

Pictured is a hole cut in the US-Mexico border fence in El Paso, Texas, on December 27, 2022. (Christopher Oquendo for DailyMail.com)

A Nicaraguan family crosses the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua state, Mexico to El Paso, Texas, USA to request political asylum on December 27, 2022.

Harris has a lower approval rating than Biden, which means it could act as a drag on his re-election chances, according to moving averages of polling results.

The announcement comes on the heels of another unflattering report about America’s first female and first black and Asian vice president.

The New York Times reported Monday:

In private conversations in recent months, dozens of Democrats in the White House, on Capitol Hill and across the country, including some who helped her put her on the party’s 2020 ticket, said she had not risen to the challenge of showing that she herself was a future leader of the party, much less of the country.’

“Even some Democrats who were referred to by reporters for endorsement quotes by their own advisers privately confided that they had given up hope on her,” the report added.

While questions are being raised about whether Biden will be up to the task of another White House term, which would come to an end when he’s 86, “most” Democrats privately admit that his second-in-command probably isn’t either. at the height. .

“I can’t think of a thing he’s ever done except stay out of the way and be with him at certain ceremonies,” John Morgan, a prominent Democratic fundraiser, told the Times.

Harris’ approval rating sits at around 39 percent, according to polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight.

The report notes that Harris “almost went into a bunker for about a year” after a calamitous interview with NBC’s Lester Holt in June 2021.

‘Do you have any plans to visit the border?’ Holt asked during the VP’s trip to Guatemala, at that time his first international trip for the new administration.

We have been to the border. So, this whole border thing. We have been to the border. We have been to the border,’ he repeated.

“You haven’t been to the border,” Holt replied.

“And I haven’t been to Europe,” Harris snapped, then quickly turned it into his trademark laugh.

“And I mean, I don’t get the point you’re making,” he told Holt. “I’m not dismissing the importance of the border.”

And later that month, he scheduled a trip to El Paso, Texas, to tour the facility and say he had been to the border.