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President Joe Biden’s promise to renew foreign aid to the Central America in an attempt to improve living conditions that are driving migrants to flee reflects what the prevailing line of thinking among Democrats for years: that the best way to deter large numbers of migrants from the region is to help their home countries become more peaceful and prosperous.
The White House has announced $310 million in emergency aid to Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, collectively known as the Northern Triangle, to help refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons and other vulnerable populations. It’s meant in part to address what Vice President Kamala Harris has called the “acute factors” pushing people to migrate: recurrent drought, resulting food shortages, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Biden has proposed a broader $4 billion aid package over the course of four years that would grapple with the “root causes” of migration: poverty, lack of econom
This piece was edited prior to the start of the GSOC, UAW Local 2110 strike.
I had just arrived to Ilom, Chajul in June 2019 when I heard the news that the Minister of Governance had signed an agreement with the Trump administration to make Guatemala a safe third country. I felt disoriented. Speaking with an elder from Ilom, he told me about the women and children who had migrated within the past year, others who were recently deported, and those that still planned to go.
It is a three-hour bus trip on a muddy and bumpy dirt road from the town center of Chajul to Ilom. A little past half-way, one sees the construction of the Xacbal Delta dam and the fully operational Hidro Xacbal hydroelectric plant. Both are located on the coffee
The bill drew praise from right-of-center organizations that had opposed Trump s immigration policy, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, but disdain from groups like the ACLU, who called it an effort to short-circuit due process.
The bill would create structures for surge staffing at the border, while increasing access to legal and translation services for asylum seekers, but it would also expand the role of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in asylum determinations. We re trying to do this in a more of a middle of the road [bill], which means the far left and the far right are not going to like it, Cuéllar told The Hill.
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Hey Recast family! Welcome to our weekly Friday Q&A, “The Sitdown.” For today’s newsletter, our very own Sabrina Rodriguez spoke to Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) a longtime advocate for addressing root causes of migration who weighs in on what needs to be done in the Northern Triangle region, how his recent trip to the southern border went and what President Joe Biden is telling him about it.