White House Officials Head to Mexico, Guatemala Amid Migrant Influx at Border

Two top White House officials will travel to Mexico and Guatemala this week for talks on stemming the flow of illegal migration as President Joe Biden comes under increasing pressure to respond to a growing crisis at the border.

Roberta Jacobson, Biden’s senior official for southwest border affairs, and the National Security Council’s Western Hemisphere Director Juan Gonzalez are leaving for the region on Monday, according to a White House statement.

The trip shows the increased urgency the Biden administration is feeling to address the influx of migrants, especially unaccompanied children and teenagers, which has created humanitarian predicament at the border and political problems for the White House. Biden said Sunday that he plans to visit the U.S.-Mexico border “at some point” for a first-hand look at conditions.

The U.S. delegation will meet with Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, deputy secretary for North America Roberto Velasco and other foreign ministry officials, a senior administration official said in a briefing for reporters.

The official declined to be identified as a condition of participating in the briefing.

In Guatemala, President Alejandro Giammattei and Foreign Minister Pedro Brolo will host Gonzalez and Ricardo Zúñiga, a State Department official who is being named special envoy to the Northern Triangle region of Central America, from where most of the migrants leave.

Jacobson and Gonzalez plan to discuss ways to stop the migrants from traveling north to the U.S. border as well as strategies to address the root causes of the migration, such as corruption, violence and poor economic conditions in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

The U.S. officials in Mexico will pitch a joint development strategy for southern Mexico and the Northern Triangle to boost job creation and give potential migrants better reasons to remain in their home countries, the official said. Guatemalan civil society leaders and representatives of non-governmental organization are also scheduled to meet with the U.S. delegation.

The Biden administration included $4 billion in aid for Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador in its proposal for an immigration overhaul, but Jacobson has said the money will be contingent on those governments rooting out corruption.

The U.S. has seen a dramatic spike in the number of people encountered by border officials in recent weeks. That includes 18,945 family members encountered in February alone, an increase of 168% from January, according to the Pew Research Center.

Republicans have accused Biden of creating a crisis by rolling back some of former President Donald Trump’s hard-line policies while using more welcoming rhetoric on immigration.

Biden and his top aides have argued they are still turning back the vast majority of those who show up at the southern border using an authority known as Title 42 -- a provision enacted during the pandemic to stem the spread of coronavirus.

But Biden’s decision to accept unaccompanied minors has strained shelter space, which was already in shorter supply due to coronavirus restrictions.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which operates the shelters, had more than 9,500 children and teens in custody as of last week. An additional 4,500 minors were in facilities run by Customs and Border Protection. Minors are only supposed to remain at CBP sites for 72 hours but many have stayed longer due to lack of space at HHS shelters.

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