It’s worth staying away.
The Biden administration is considering sending cash payments to Central Americans in an effort to prevent them from moving north as the US grapples with its worst immigration crisis in 20 years, Reuters reported Friday.
The potential money transfer program would target residents of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, who account for the vast majority of migrants crossing the border illegally, Roberta Jacobson, the White House’s southern border coordinator, told the outlet.
“We are looking at all productive options to address both the economic reasons why people migrate and the protection and security reasons,” Jacobson told the outlet in an interview.
In March, nearly 170,000 migrants were picked up by US border security agents at the southern border, a 70 percent increase from February and the highest monthly total since March 2001, data show.
The numbers have been steadily increasing since the beginning of the year and are attributed to a wide variety of factors. They include the pandemic, natural disasters in those regions and a more welcoming attitude from President Biden, who reversed a set of strict immigration policies put in place by his predecessor.
Local law enforcement units and public officials along the border have criticized Biden for not doing enough to stop or prepare the wave, leaving thousands of unaccompanied children languishing in federal custody at the reported cost of $ 60 million a week.
The White House hopes the cash payments will address the economic problems facing Central Americans so that they don’t feel the need to migrate, the outlet said, citing a senior White House official who is not by name.
Jacobson, who announced on Friday that she is stepping down, was unable to explain to Reuters how the program would work, but said she can “promise” that “the US government will not hand out money or checks to people.”
The government is also considering a plan to ship COVID-19 vaccines to Central American countries, where the introduction of vaccines is extremely slow. In Honduras and Guatemala, less than one percent of the population has been vaccinated and in El Salvador only 2.5 percent has been injected. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html
Jacobson said the government has not yet reached a decision on whether or not to prioritize sending vaccines to countries in the Northern Triangle, but said Biden will consider how the vaccinations could help those countries’ struggling economies.