LIVE: Vice President Harris Meets With Guatemala President to Discuss Migrant Surge

Vice President Kamala Harris finds herself navigating strained relations with the leaders of Central American countries that have produced a surge of migrants to the U.S., vastly complicating her assignment to curb a growing humanitarian crisis on the southwest border.

Most would-be immigrants are from the so-called Northern Triangle –- Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador -– and their economies are tied to billions of dollars of annual remittances from their citizens working in the U.S.

The difficulties are deeper still: The president of Honduras is accused by U.S. prosecutors of being part of a cocaine trafficking conspiracy, the president of El Salvador refused to see a U.S. envoy and the Guatemalan congress wouldn’t swear in a corruption-fighting judge.

“This is not a situation in which we write a check to governments and let them spend it as they wish,” said Roberta Jacobson, who is leaving her job as the border coordinator for the Biden administration after three months.

Of course, the U.S. is hardly blameless. Over many decades, it’s engaged in whiplash-quality shifts in welcoming and rejecting its southern neighbors, enjoying the benefits of vulnerable low-wage workers at the ready. Previous administrations have backed coup attempts and supported strongmen who carried out abuses against their citizens. Salvadoran gangs originated in Los Angeles prisons; their leaders were deported south where they’ve taken over whole parts of the country, spreading murder and mayhem.

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