[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
STAKEHOLDER PERSPECTIVES ON ADDRESSING
MIGRATION PUSH FACTORS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
OVERSIGHT, MANAGEMENT,
AND ACCOUNTABILITY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 6, 2021
__________
Serial No. 117-13
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
45-005 PDF WASHINGTON : 2021
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi, Chairman
Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas John Katko, New York
James R. Langevin, Rhode Island Michael T. McCaul, Texas
Donald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey Clay Higgins, Louisiana
J. Luis Correa, California Michael Guest, Mississippi
Elissa Slotkin, Michigan Dan Bishop, North Carolina
Emanuel Cleaver, Missouri Jefferson Van Drew, New Jersey
Al Green, Texas Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Yvette D. Clarke, New York Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa
Eric Swalwell, California Diana Harshbarger, Tennessee
Dina Titus, Nevada Andrew S. Clyde, Georgia
Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey Carlos A. Gimenez, Florida
Kathleen M. Rice, New York Jake LaTurner, Kansas
Val Butler Demings, Florida Peter Meijer, Michigan
Nanette Diaz Barragan, California Kat Cammack, Florida
Josh Gottheimer, New Jersey August Pfluger, Texas
Elaine G. Luria, Virginia Andrew R. Garbarino, New York
Tom Malinowski, New Jersey
Ritchie Torres, New York
Hope Goins, Staff Director
Chris Vieson, Minority Staff Director
Natalie Nixon, Clerk
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT, MANAGEMENT, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
J. Luis Correa, California, Chairman
Dina Titus, Nevada Peter Meijer, Michigan, Ranking
Donald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey Member
Ritchie Torres, New York Dan Bishop, North Carolina
Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi (ex Diana Harshbarger, Tennessee
officio) John Katko, New York (ex officio)
Lisa Canini, Subcommittee Staff Director
Eric Heighberger, Minority Subcommittee Staff Director
Geremiah Lofton, Subcommittee Clerk
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Statements
The Honorable J. Luis Correa, a Representative in Congress From
the State of California, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
Oversight, Management, and Accountability:
Oral Statement................................................. 1
Prepared Statement............................................. 3
The Honorable Peter Meijer, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Oversight, Management, and Accountability:
Oral Statement................................................. 4
Prepared Statement............................................. 6
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Mississippi, and Chairman, Committee on
Homeland Security:
Prepared Statement............................................. 8
Witnesses
Ms. Shannon O'Neil, Vice President, Deputy Director of Studies,
Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin America
Studies, Council on Foreign Relations:
Oral Statement................................................. 8
Prepared Statement............................................. 10
Mr. Daniel A. Restrepo, Senior Fellow, Center for American
Progress:
Oral Statement................................................. 13
Prepared Statement............................................. 15
Mr. Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, Policy Analysis, Migration Policy
Institute:
Oral Statement................................................. 19
Prepared Statement............................................. 21
Mr. Steven Hinkley, Sheriff, Calhoun County, Michigan:
Oral Statement................................................. 26
Prepared Statement............................................. 27
STAKEHOLDER PERSPECTIVES ON ADDRESSING MIGRATION PUSH FACTORS
----------
Thursday, May 6, 2021
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Oversight, Management,
and Accountability,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., via
Webex, Hon. J. Luis Correa [Chairman of the subcommittee]
presiding.
Present: Representatives Correa, Titus, Torres, Meijer,
Bishop, and Harshbarger.
Chairman Correa. The Subcommittee on Oversight, Management,
and Accountability will now come to order. Without objection,
the Chair is authorized to declare the subcommittee in recess
at any point. Let me start by thanking all of you for joining
us today.
We're here to discuss what drives people in Central America
to leave their homes and migrate north to the United States. In
recent weeks, we have all had the chance to visit El Paso,
Texas, and like many of you did, what I was saw was tragic.
Unaccompanied children at our doorstep and we are doing
everything we can. We are doing the best we can to take care of
these children.
I had the chance to meet and speak with Yuri and Yareli,
the 3- and 5-year old girls who many of you saw on TV were
thrown over the 12-foot barrier by smugglers. They were
traumatized but thank goodness, they were safe. The Border
Patrol officers showed me the spot where the girls were thrown
over the wall. If it were not for those alert Border Patrol
officers, with their high-tech long-distance night vision
equipment, those girls would surely have died a horrible death
in the middle of the desert. I have heard many other stories of
sexual assaults, rapes, and crimes inflicted upon these
refugees, upon these children, as they travel north.
Separately, I also had the chance to visit a shelter in
Tijuana, Mexico. A shelter for families, moms and dads with
children. These were families deported summarily under Section
42 of the Health Code. I saw lots of pain. Families trying to
figure out what they were going to do after spending their life
savings on a smuggler and left stranded from home with no
resources and nowhere to turn.
It is always painful to see refugees in this condition.
Yet, this is not new. Back in 2008, I had to visit similar
refugee camps for unaccompanied minors. I have to say the faces
were different, yet the look of pain and despair was
essentially the same.
As a Nation, we have a habit of focusing on the immediate
challenges at our Southern Border and rarely do we take a step
back to look at the bigger picture. So, today, we are going to
talk about the long-standing causes of migration and the role
our country can play as a regional partner.
For decades, the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala,
Honduras, and El Salvador have struggled to combat wide-spread
violence, political instability, corruption, and food
insecurity.
These long-standing problems have only been made worse by
recent natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic. Both of
these factors, of course, have crippled the local economies,
caused more hunger, more unemployment, and more starvation.
When you are starving, you have no choice but to head north.
At the moment, President Biden is sending over $400 million
to Central America in humanitarian aid to address some of the
most pressing needs of the region, including emergency food.
Yet money for food and shelter will not address the systemic
corruption, inequality, and violence that disrupts economic
activity and social growth in that region. That is why the
President has also outlined an ambitious 4-year, $4 billion
plan to address these long-standing factors that drive
migration from Central America to the United States.
This strategy will require collaboration with regional
partners to best understand the individual problems in each
country and to ensure that these regional governments also have
skin in the game.
As you know, Vice President Harris is spearheading this
diplomatic outreach. Just last week, she met with the
Guatemalan president and committed resources from our own
Department of Homeland Security. It is my understanding that
DHS is working to develop partnerships with the Central
American governments to develop a framework to manage migration
in the region. DHS is also advising and working closely with
local officials in Central America in those countries to
strengthen custom enforcement and to prevent illegally obtained
wealth from exiting the country as another way to combat local
government corruption. DHS is also assisting these countries in
improving security and helping them fight wide-spread violence
from gangs and trans-national criminal organizations.
But this is just a start. There is so much more that needs
to be done. This administration and future administrations
can't do it alone. We need to activate the private sector, give
them incentives to play a central role in creating good jobs,
good paying jobs in Central America. We, Congress, that is us,
need to oversee progress or lack thereof in Central America.
It is interesting because the only time we, as an
institution, look in Central America is when we see smoke. The
only time Congress really acts is when there is a fire.
As a Nation, we have been fighting endless wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, and other parts of the world. Yet, we
have overlooked our own backyard. Ignoring the ever-growing
economical and political instability in our own hemisphere.
Congress needs to send a message to the Central American
leaders. We will be watching you and we must actually watch
what is going on, on a day-to-day basis. Understanding the
failures and successes of past programs implemented in Central
America is key to creating effective and meaningful change. We
have seen that with continued and targeted support, the United
States can help Central American countries grow and be
prosperous, more secure, and much more politically stable.
To that end, today I look forward to hearing from our
witnesses about the living conditions that push migration north
from Central America and how the United States can most
effectively help our regional partners build communities that
provide hope to people without hope.
Again, I thank all of you today for joining us.
[The statement of Chairman Correa follows:]
Statement of Chairman J. Luis Correa
May 6, 2021
We're here to discuss what drives people in Central America to
leave their homes and migrate north to the United States. Far too often
we focus on the immediate challenges on our Southern Border and don't
take a step back to look at the bigger picture. So today we are going
to talk about the long-standing causes of migration and the role our
country can play as a regional partner.
For decades, the Northern Triangle countries of Guatamala,
Honduras, and El Salvador have struggled to combat wide-spread
violence, political instability, corruption, and food insecurity. These
long-standing problems have only been exacerbated by recent natural
disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic, which have crippled economies and
left thousands on the brink of starvation and homelessness. As people
lose hope in a better future, they feel there is no other choice but to
make the dangerous trip north. Efforts to reduce migration cannot
succeed without addressing this overwhelming and pervasive feeling of
hopelessness. Until they have a reason to stay, people will continue to
leave their home countries and seek a better future for themselves and
their children elsewhere.
In order to address some of the most pressing needs of the region,
including emergency food services and disaster relief, President Biden
plans to send over $400 million to Central America in humanitarian aid.
Aid money for food and shelter alone will not address the systemic
corruption, inequality, and violence that disrupts economic and social
growth. Which is why the President has also outlined an ambitious 4-
year, $4 billion plan to address these long-standing factors driving
migration from Central America. This strategy will require close
collaboration with regional partners to best understand the individual
problems in each country and to ensure that there is buy-in on U.S.
involvement.
Vice President Harris has spearheaded this diplomatic outreach, and
just last week she met with the Guatamalan president and committed
resources from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Working to
develop partnerships with foreign governments is part of how DHS is
contributing to the overall goal of developing a framework for managing
migration in the region. Acting in an advisory capacity, the Department
has worked closely with local officials in Central American countries
to strengthen customs enforcement and prevent illegally obtained wealth
from exiting the country, a key way to combat Government corruption.
Furthermore, DHS has assisted Northern Triangle countries with
efforts to improve security and prevent wide-spread violence at the
hands of gangs and trans-national criminal organizations.
But there is still a great deal of work that needs to be done. I am
looking forward to hearing from our witnesses today on how we can make
sure that U.S. resources are utilized to the greatest extent possible.
Understanding the failures and success of past programs implemented
in Central America is key to creating effective and meaningful change
moving forward. That means making sure that our plans take into
consideration the realities of the moment. For example, communities
must be built back with an understanding of how climate change will
continue to impact the region. And assistance to overworked and
underfunded public health systems is particularly critical in the on-
going fight against COVID-19. We have seen that with continued and
targeted support, the United States can help Central American countries
grow more prosperous, secure, and politically stable.
To that end, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today
about the living conditions that push people to migrate from Central
America and how the United States can most effectively help our
regional partners build communities that provide people with hope.
Chairman Correa. The Chair now recognizes our Ranking
Member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Michigan, Mr.
Meijer, for an opening statement. Mr. Meijer.
Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding
this hearing today, the first of this Congress of the
Oversight, Management, and Accountability Subcommittee on this
important topic.
I am very excited to serve and honored to serve as the
Ranking Member of this subcommittee. I am sure it will be one
of many productive hearings we hold going forward to address
this issue, especially relevant as we continue to deal with the
fallout of the crisis at our Southern Border. I also want to
say, Mr. Chairman, I strongly agree with your belief that we
should not only be looking to regions when there is smoke. I
firmly believe that we should be viewing the world not as a
series of discrete problems to solve, but one in which we
maintain focus, we maintain awareness, and address the
challenges that we will be enduring in various forms.
Just a few weeks ago, I visited the border with several of
our Homeland Security colleagues, including Congresswoman
Harshbarger, who is here with us today. I also know that
Congressman Bishop has been to the border with the Judiciary
Committee. So, we have seen these issues and situations up
close, as you, Mr. Chairman, have also seen in your recent trip
to the border.
This crisis exemplifies many of the problems with our
current system. While the need for comprehensive immigration
reform, including more effective border security, is clear, it
is also important that we understand why so many individuals
and families continue to make the perilous journey to our
Southern Border.
Although I believe that the current crisis has been
unnecessarily caused or accelerated by misguided policies, I
also understand that there are complex, interconnected sets of
factors that play into the decision to leave one's country. For
the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and
Honduras, where most migrants are coming from today who are
coming across our border, these factors include systemic and
entrenched corruption, poverty, food insecurity, violence, and
a lack of economic opportunity that often precludes them from
making a better life for themselves and their families in their
home countries. If we recognize the humanity of each person
making this journey, often coming from a place of desperation,
the need to address this current crisis and find long-term
solutions becomes ever clearer.
Before coming to Congress, I saw communities struggle with
these kinds of crises around the world. I led disaster response
operations to assist communities impacted by natural disasters.
I spent 2 years in Afghanistan as a conflict analyst with the
aid community there, working to protect aid workers and those
delivering vital assistance to others in need.
To be clear, I do not fault those who seek a better life
for their families, but the current administration's rhetoric
and policies also encourage thousands of migrants to put
themselves, and in many cases, their family members and young
children, in danger. The actions taken by the administration in
the first days of office have helped accelerate the crisis we
are seeing today. Specifically, halting border wall
construction funded by Congress, implementing catch-and-release
policies, eliminating the Remain in Mexico policy to deter non-
meritorious claims, and canceling asylum and cooperation
agreements with our Central American partners that would have
allowed migrants to seek asylum closer to home as those claims
were adjudicated.
Some of the statistics that we are seeing are heart-
breaking. CBP is on track to encounter more than 2 million
migrants crossing the border by the end of the year. More than
4 times the number from fiscal year 2020. Between February 19
and April 22 of this year, TSA assisted approximately 7,200
migrants at 10 border airports in document verification,
bypassing standard photo ID requirements, boarding domestic
flights, and with unsure and unclear COVID-19 results in
addition.
According to Border Patrol agents, migrants are paying
smugglers on average $4,000 to reach the Southern Border. That,
again, just complicates and emphasizes the economic burden that
is being placed on individuals and the horrific conditions that
they are put in on this journey.
I am aware that the administration has recently announced
$300 million in funding for Northern Triangle countries and has
proposed a $4 billion aid package to address this instability
and other issues in the region. A long-term engagement with our
regional partners is important. I also note that foreign
assistance must be carefully targeted, monitored, and
transparent on both sides to ensure that these funds are not
being wasted and are going to have maximum impacts to address
this challenge.
Without real metrics and closer collaboration between the
different Government agencies engaged in the region, there is
no reason to believe that more money will lead to more
progress. I look forward to us talking about how to most
efficiently allocate funding during this hearing. This kind of
long-term engagement will take sustained attention and focused
effort. Something that we can struggle to produce at times.
I am honored to serve on this important subcommittee so
that, again, we can bring that focus, we can bring that effort,
that dedication to not just viewing the world as a series of
problems to solve, but challenges that we must manage, that we
must retain attention towards, and that we must be emphatic in
ensuring that conditions improve.
One of the key frustrations with this issue coming to
Congress is that while there are rhetoric and conversations at
the National level, we are also seeing many impacts at the
local level. I am honored to have Sheriff Hinkley from Calhoun
County in my district joining us here today, where over 100
unaccompanied migrant children were recently relocated to a
non-profit facility for care.
Michigan is always willing to help those who are vulnerable
and in need. But we need to make sure that unaccompanied
children, the policies surrounding that, have the most
appropriate oversight to ensure that humane care, appropriate
conditions, and other standards are met.
My witness today will be able to offer that needed local
perspective, talk more about the local impacts of this crisis
and immigration policies, in general, and what they have heard
from States and localities. So, Mr. Chairman, thank you again
for holding this hearing. I look forward to hearing from our
distinguished witnesses today. I yield back.
[The statement of Ranking Member Meijer follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member Peter Meijer
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing today--the first
of this Congress for the Oversight, Management, and Accountability
Subcommittee. I am very excited and honored to serve as the Ranking
Member of this subcommittee and am sure that this is the first of many
productive hearings we will hold.
The hearing today is especially relevant as we continue to deal
with the fallout of the crisis at our Southern Border.
Mr. Chairman, I strongly agree with your belief that we should not
only be looking to regions when there is smoke. I firmly believe that
we should be viewing the world not as a series of discrete problems to
solve but one in which we maintain focus, we maintain awareness, and we
address challenges that will be enduring in various forms.
Just a few weeks ago, I visited the border with several of our
Homeland Security colleagues, including Congresswoman Harshbarger who
is with us today. I know that Congressman Bishop has also been to the
border with the Judiciary Committee, so we have all seen the issues and
situation up close, as you, Mr. Chairman, have also seen in your recent
trip to the border.
This crisis exemplifies the problems with our current system. While
the need for comprehensive immigration reform, including more effective
border security, is clear, it is also important that we understand why
so many individuals and families continue to make the perilous journey
to our Southern Border. Although I believe that the current crisis has
been unnecessarily caused or accelerated by misguided policies, I also
understand that there are complex, interconnected sets of factors that
play into the decision to leave one's country.
For the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and
Honduras, where most migrants are coming from today, these factors
include systematic and entrenched corruption, poverty and food
insecurity, violence, and a lack of economic opportunity that often
precludes them from making a better life for themselves and their
families in their home countries. If we recognize the humanity of each
person making this journey, often coming from a place of desperation,
the need to address this current crisis and find long-term solutions
becomes even clearer.
Before coming to Congress, I saw communities struggle with these
kinds of crises around the world. I led disaster response operations to
assist communities impacted by natural disasters and spent 2 years in
Afghanistan as a conflict analyst with the aid community, working to
protect aid workers and those delivering vital assistance to others in
need.
To be clear: I do not fault those who seek a better life for their
families, but the current administration's reckless rhetoric and
policies have encouraged hundreds of thousands of migrants to put
themselves, and in many cases their family members and young children,
in danger. Many actions taken by the administration in the first few
days in office have helped accelerate the crisis we're seeing today.
Specifically,
Halting border wall system construction funded by Congress;
Implementing ``catch-and-release'' policies;
Eliminating the Remain in Mexico Policy to deter non-
meritorious asylum claims;
And canceling Asylum Cooperative Agreements with our Central
American partners that would have allowed migrants to seek
asylum closer to home.
And the statistics we're seeing are heartbreaking:
CBP is on track to encounter more than 2 million migrants
crossing the U.S.-Mexico border by the end of this fiscal
year--more than 4 times the number encountered in fiscal year
2020.
Between February 19--April 22, TSA assisted approximately
7,200 migrants at 10 border airports in document verification,
allowing them to bypass standard government-issued photo ID
requirements and board domestic flights.
And according to Border Patrol agents, migrants are paying
smugglers on average $4,000 to reach the Southern Border.
I am aware that the administration has recently announced $300
million in funding for Northern Triangle countries and has proposed a
$4 billion aid package to address instability and other issues in the
region. While long-term engagement with our regional partners is
important, I also know that foreign assistance needs to be carefully
targeted, monitored, and transparent on both sides, to ensure these
funds are not being wasted.
Without real metrics and closer collaboration between the different
U.S. Government agencies engaged in the region, there is little reason
to believe that more money will lead to more progress. I look forward
to talking about how to most efficiently allocate those resources
during this hearing. This kind of long-term engagement will take
sustained attention and focused effort, something that we can struggle
to produce at times.
I'm honored to serve on this important subcommittee so that we can
bring that focus, we can bring that attention, we can bring that
effort, that dedication to not just viewing the world as a series of
problems to be solved but challenges that we must manage and we must
maintain attention toward, and we must be emphatic in ensuring that
conditions improve.
One of the key frustrations with the issue of immigration since
coming to Congress is that while the rhetoric and the conversation is
happening at the National level, the impacts are felt most at the local
level. I'm honored to have Sheriff Hinkley joining us here today from
Calhoun County in my district, where over 100 unaccompanied migrant
children were recently relocated to a non-profit facility for care.
Michigan is always willing to help those who are vulnerable and in
need, but we need to make sure the policies surrounding unaccompanied
children have the most appropriate oversight to ensure humane care,
appropriate conditions, and other standards are met. My witness today
will be able to offer that needed local perspective and talk more about
some of the local impacts this crisis, and immigration policies in
general, have on States and localities.
Mr. Chairman, thank you again for holding this hearing. I look
forward to hearing from our witnesses.
Chairman Correa. Members are reminded that the committees
will operate according to the guidelines laid out by the
Chairman and Ranking Member in their February 3 colloquy
regarding remote procedures. Now, I would like to welcome our
panel of witnesses.
First, we have Ms. Shannon O'Neil. Ms. O'Neil is vice
president, deputy director of studies and Nelson and David
Rockefeller senior fellow for Latin American studies with the
Council on Foreign Relations. She is an expert on Latin
America, global trade, U.S.-Mexico relations, corruption,
democracy, and immigration.
Our second witness is Mr. Dan Restrepo, a senior fellow at
the Center for American Progress. Mr. Restrepo created and
directed the American Project where at the center that focuses
on Latin America and the role of Hispanics in the United
States, their future, and the implications for public policy.
For nearly 6 years, he served as a principal advisor to
President Obama on issues related to Latin America, the
Caribbean, and Canada.
Our third witness, Mr. Ariel Ruiz Soto, is a policy analyst
at the Migratory Policy Institute. His research focuses on the
impact of U.S. immigration policies and procedures on
immigrants and other populations and the interaction between
United States, Mexican, and Central American migration
policies.
Now, I will have our Ranking Member, Mr. Meijer, introduce
our final witness.
Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our final witness is
Sheriff Hinkley of Calhoun County. Sheriff Hinkley has served
in that role in law enforcement for 29 years. He has a
distinguished background in law enforcement and has been a
pivotal force in the west Michigan community to both deal with
some of the local impacts of the migration crisis and of
immigration in general, but also ensuring that we have
inclusive, comprehensive, and humane treatment of all. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Correa. I thank the Ranking Member, Mr. Meijer.
Without any objection, the witnesses' full statements will be
inserted into the record. Member statements may also be
submitted for the record.
[The statement of Chairman Thompson follows:]
Statement of Chairman Bennie G. Thompson
May 6, 2021
As I mentioned during a hearing on unaccompanied children last
week, the situation at the Southern Border is not a new challenge.
Neither are the reasons people try to come to the United States.
Instability in Central America, especially in the Northern Triangle,
has been a key driver of migration to the Southern Border since 2014.
High rates of poverty and violence have led thousands of families and
children to leave in search of a better, safer life. Rather than
continue efforts to improve living conditions in the region, the Trump
administration repeatedly sought to scale back funding for Central
America.
Following a surge of migrants from the Northern Triangle in 2019,
President Trump cut $400 million in U.S. assistance to the region and
suspended the remaining aid for more than a year. Similar to his other
cruel immigration policies, this did little to deter migration.
Instead, it made conditions in the Northern Triangle even worse. The
COVID-19 pandemic and an especially bad hurricane season in 2020 caused
further devastation--leading to greater poverty and economic
inequality. It is no wonder why the flow of migrants began to increase
over the last year. While Republicans insist on calling the situation
at the Southern Border a crisis, the real crisis is the conditions in
some Central American countries that are pushing people north.
I applaud the Biden administration for committing to addressing the
root causes of migration as part of a broader plan to overhaul our
broken immigration system and implement more humane policies. The
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will be a key partner in carrying
out this plan and the committee stands ready to support its efforts.
Reducing the flow of migration to more regular and manageable levels
will allow DHS to focus on its other vital missions, such as
strengthening cybersecurity and combatting domestic terrorism. But
progress will not be made overnight.
As Vice President Harris--who is leading the administration's
effort to engage with Central America--said: ``If it were easy, it
would have been solved a long time ago.'' Meaningful change will
require long-term investments, effective partnerships, and cooperation
from leaders who have benefited from systemic corruption. But it can be
done. And the last 4 years has shown us, that doing nothing to address
the push factors of migration will only make conditions worse.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on possible ways
Congress and the administration can best address these push factors in
the short- and long-term.
Chairman Correa. Now, I'm going to ask each witness to
summarize his or her statements for 5 minutes. We will start
with Ms. O'Neil. Welcome, Ms. O'Neil.
STATEMENT OF SHANNON O'NEIL, VICE PRESIDENT, DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF
STUDIES, NELSON AND DAVID ROCKEFELLER SENIOR FELLOW FOR LATIN
AMERICA STUDIES, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
Ms. O'Neil. Great, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,
Ranking Member Meijer, and Members of the subcommittee. I am
really grateful for the invitation to talk here with you today.
The number of Central Americans and Mexicans that are
arriving at the U.S. Southern Border has been growing since
April 2020. So, this is now over a year-long rise that reflects
the exacerbations of long-term chronic conditions in these
nations. These are conditions that push people out of their
homes, their communities, and ultimately, their countries, in
search of safety and opportunity.
To change and to dissuade this movement, the United States
and others need to address some immediate acute factors, as
well as longer-term structural factors that are behind this
migration. In these opening remarks, I am going to focus my
time on the longer-term structural factors and I am going to
leave the immediate ones to my colleague, Dan Restrepo.
So, these underlying issues driving so many people to the
U.S. border, they include things like economic devastation and
hunger. They include violence and the fear of violence. They
include climate change and extreme weather events. They also
result from the pull of deep family ties and community ties to
what is increasingly an opening and growing and vibrant U.S.
economy. Now, these are not new issues, these pull and push
factors. They are not new issues for these nations, nor for
their citizens. But they are vitally important in shaping the
decisions of now hundreds of thousands of Central Americans and
Mexicans when they are trying to decide whether or not to leave
their homelands.
Creating economic opportunities, improving physical safety,
and helping individuals adapt to climate changes, particularly
in agriculture, these are all important for altering the
migration calculations of individuals, of families, and
communities. So, as we think about U.S. Government programs and
U.S. Government assistance, they should focus on these long-
term issues and try to do just that, change the calculations of
these individuals.
Education is an important, and I would say the first, place
to start. Most Central American and Mexican young people have
not yet returned to in-person school. So, this leaves them on
the streets, where they are vulnerable to gangs or other
criminal networks. It limits their ties to their communities.
It limits their access to after-school programs, to tutoring,
or to other efforts to help them grow into self-assured and
productive adults.
Longer-term, education provides different economic
opportunities and different potential livelihoods for these
young people. So, safely reopening schools and making sure as
many children as possible return to those schools after having
been away for over a year, this is vital for the next
generation of Central Americans and Mexicans. Frankly, for the
future trajectory of the economics, of the politics, and of the
migration flows from these nations. So, I would focus on
education.
You know, important too are programs that are outside the
classroom that can change the mindsets and the direction for
young people in these nations. So, this should include various
initiatives to mentor young people, to help them build life
skills, to give them a first initial work opportunity to start
building a resume. To help them heal from trauma, because so
many of them have experienced that in their nations.
Studies show that these kinds of efforts can make a
difference in their lives. It can help embed them and tie them
to their communities at home. It can lesson the power of the
factors that drive them to migrate.
Rural agricultural communities, they need support too, and
different kinds of support. For families to stay and continue
farming, many need the type of aid that will allow them to set
up drainage systems or irrigation systems. They need assistance
in moving from the crops they grow today to shifting to crops
that are more weather resistant or facing the new kinds of
climate changes that they now experience on a regular basis. Or
they need help introducing them to new markets where they can
sell their goods. Or thinking about other kinds of produce or
other kinds of products that have higher-value margins so that
they can actually earn more for each crop rotation that they
are planting. Enabling these livelihoods in farming, and then
letting them to continue, and in many places prosper, this too,
can change the migration calculations for perhaps hundreds of
thousands of people in these nations.
Now, complementing these programs, the U.S. Government
should explicitly take on corruption that makes it so hard for
so many of these people to stay in their countries. So, that
means reestablishing internationally-funded anti-corruption
bodies. It means bolstering the work of reformers in these
countries. It means the United States should provide no harbor,
either personally or financially, for political officials or
business leaders that are engaged in corruption.
Let me just end on good news. The good news is the United
States has real partners in the large numbers of businesses,
non-profit organizations, families, and citizens that want to
make their communities in their nations better and fairer and
more inclusive. They want to make their nations a place where
people can stay. So, the United States should work with these
allies to play an important role. It should work to bring hope,
to bring opportunity, and to change the realities on the ground
that today make it so necessary for people to leave. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. O'Neil follows:]
Prepared Statement of Shannon O'Neil
May 6, 2021
migrants at the southwest border: push factors & policy solutions
Chairman Correa, Ranking Member Meijer, and Members of the
subcommittee: Thank you for the invitation to testify today. I am
grateful for the subcommittee's interest in Central American and
Mexican migration and to have this opportunity to discuss U.S. policy
options to address this chronic issue. As always, I am eager to hear
your advice and answer any questions.
Between January and April 2021, CBP apprehended 570,000 people, a
mix of individuals and families, at the southwest U.S. border.\1\ If
this pace continues, 2021 apprehensions will exceed previous recent
peaks in 2019 and 2014-2015, though still remain below those of the
late 1990's and early 2000's.
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\1\ U.S. Customs and Border Protection. ``CBP Enforcement
Statistics Fiscal Year 2021,'' April 2021. https://www.cbp.gov/
newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics/. Calculations based on
Customs and Border Protection (U.S. Border Patrol and Office of Field
Operations) data.
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The migration spikes of the last decade have been largely driven by
the rising movement of Central Americans. Today roughly half of the
individuals, and 9 out of 10 of the families, that arrive at the
southern U.S. border come from Central America's Northern Triangle
countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. This exodus results
from a number of chronic push factors. It also results from the pull of
a recovering U.S. economy and the deep familial and community ties
between the United States and the sending nations.
Economic Insecurity, Violence, and Bad Governance Push Central
Americans North
One of the biggest challenges is economic insecurity. These
economies have expanded more slowly than many other emerging markets in
recent years. Tepid growth rates reflect the direct and indirect costs
of violence, corruption, extortion, and poor governance, which has
limited local and foreign investment and formal sector job
opportunities.
COVID-19 hit the 3 economies hard, the IMF estimating declines of 2
percent in Guatemala, 9 percent in El Salvador, and nearly 7 percent in
Honduras. Millions in the region have fallen into poverty, and hunger
and malnutrition are on the rise.
Extreme weather and climate changes have exacerbated these economic
difficulties, pushing more Central Americans to leave. Tropical Storm
Eta and Hurricane Iota, both dubbed once-in-a-century storms that hit
just 2 weeks apart in November 2020, directly displaced over 100,000
people and, according to the United Nations, affected over 7 million
more as mudslides buried homes and fields, shut down hospitals, and
cutoff access to clean water.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ ``Central America: Tropical Storm Eta & Hurricane Iota--Six
Weeks Later (as of 22 December 2020).'' OCHA, December 22, 2020.
https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/2020-12-
23%206W%20After%20%28ENG%29.pdf.
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Significant swathes of El Salvador and Honduras, along with
portions of Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, make up what has come
to be called the ``Dry Corridor,'' an agricultural area hit hard by a
years' long drought. The U.N. World Food Programme estimates that
nearly 1 million farmers are now facing severe crises. Losing crops and
often titles to land fuels migration.
Violence too pushes tens of thousands to leave. The Northern
Triangle remains one of the most dangerous places in the world.
Homicides rates in Guatemala and Honduras routinely top 20 and 44 per
100,000 citizens respectively. El Salvador's murder rate has declined
in recently years, but still counted some 36 murders per 100,000 in
2019. Gangs, some of them transnational in nature, effectively control
significant territory in many of these nations, robbing, kidnapping,
extorting, and assaulting fellow citizens. The lack of legal options or
protections for citizens if pressured or preyed upon spurs migration as
well. Michael Clemens at the Center for Global Development has found
that violence promotes child and unaccompanied minor migration in
particular, calculating that 6 more homicides in Central America led to
nearly 4 additional children to be apprehended at the U.S. border.\3\
Gender-based violence is another driver, particularly for the women and
children presenting themselves at the U.S. border. The 3 Central
American nations have the highest rates of femicide in the hemisphere.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Clemens, Michael A. ``Violence, Development, and Migration
Waves: Evidence from Central American Child Migrant Apprehensions.''
CGD Working Paper 459. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development.
July 2017. https://www.cgdev.org/publication/violence-development-and-
migration-waves-evidence-central-american-child-migrant.
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Corruption and poor governance more broadly drive migration. They
lead to poorly-executed infrastructure that is more likely to crumble
in the face of natural disasters, building codes ignored for a price.
Funds to alleviate tragedies or provide benefits and opportunities to
citizens are instead siphoned off. Corruption and impunity permit and
enable violence, leaving individuals fearful for their or their loved
ones' lives, and often without a choice except to flee. And the
injustice and discrimination between those on the take or those not
weaken the community ties that can keep individuals from leaving.
Family Ties and Economic Opportunities Pull Central Americans North
Two factors in particular pull migrants north. U.S. economic growth
and the promise of job opportunities encourage people to come. Studies
show that immigrants find jobs once here, and are more likely to be
employed than U.S.-born workers.\4\ And Central Americans have deep
family roots in the United States. For unaccompanied minors arriving at
the border, a strong majority have a parent or close relative that
lives in the United States.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Bureau of Labor Statistics. ``Foreign-Born Workers: Labor Force
Characteristics--2019.'' News Release. U.S. Department of Labor, May
15, 2020. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/forbrn.pdf.
\5\ Zak, Danilo. ``Fact Sheet: Unaccompanied Migrant Children
(UACs).'' National Immigration Forum, November 2, 2020. https://
immigrationforum.org/article/fact-sheet-unaccompanied-migrant-children-
uacs/.
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Mexican Migration is on the Rise
While the main U.S. focus today is on Central America, we shouldn't
overlook the rise in Mexican migration to the United States. For nearly
a decade, net Mexican migration north has been flat or negative.
According to data from the DHS and the Migration Policy Institute, the
number of unauthorized Mexicans living in the United States fell by
nearly 800,000 during the 2010's.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Migration Policy Institute Data Hub. ``U.S. Immigration
Trends,'' 2019. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/us-
immigration-trends. See: ``Mexican-Born Population Over Time, 1850-
Present.''
Baker, Bryan. ``Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population
Residing in the United States: January 2015-January 2018.'' Population
Estimates. U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Immigration
Statistics, January 2021. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/
publications/immigration-statistics/Pop_Estimate/UnauthImmigrant/
unauthorized_immi- grant_population_estimates_2015_2018.pdf.
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This trajectory has now changed. From April 2020 until February of
this year, Mexicans, mostly single adults, outnumbered all other
nationalities apprehended at the Southern Border. They continue to
represent nearly half of those crossing the border irregularly. And the
factors pushing the reversal of earlier trends show few signs of
lessening.
Mexico's migrants are largely driven by the push of economic
insecurity at home, and the pull of economic opportunity here. Mexico's
economy was stagnating before the pandemic in 2019. It has become one
of the hardest hit by COVID-19, its GDP falling 8.2 percent in 2020.
The IMF estimates it will be one of the slowest to recover in Latin
America: The combination of limited fiscal stimulus and falling
investment mean the economy won't recoup its pre-pandemic size until
2023. Meanwhile, the United States is recovering: First quarter GDP
surged more than 10 percent, and economists expect the economy to
surpass its pre-COVID-19 size by the end of this year. Job openings are
rising, particularly in food service, hospitality, construction, and
other sectors traditionally open to migrants.
Violence too displaces Mexican individuals, families, and at times
whole communities from their home towns. Homicide rates hover near
record highs, and the geographic spread and fragmentation of organized
crime and gangs has left Mexicans increasingly vulnerable as prey. The
government's inability or unwillingness to stand up competent police
and security forces and bolster effective justice systems to enforce
the rule of law leaves criminal activity largely unchecked in parts of
the Nation. This too drives Mexicans north.
Combined with continued corruption, decreasing transparency, and
poor governance, many Mexican citizens are less hopeful that the
difficulties they face at home will lessen or end, leading more to
consider leaving.
What the United States Can Do
U.S. efforts can and should focus on the immediate challenges
accelerating the exodus of people from Central America and Mexico. Food
and shelter are critical concerns. The United States can and should
provide immediate support for those displaced from their homes by
natural disasters and other events, and help those suffering from
rising hunger and malnutrition find basic necessities without having to
leave their country.
Diminishing the devastating effects of COVID-19 for personal health
and for the health of these economies is vital to change the migration
calculations of individuals and families. Mexico and Central American
nations should be given priority in U.S. vaccine diplomacy, protecting
their citizens and enabling their economies to reopen faster.
Aid to safely reopen schools and extend educational opportunities
in a COVID-19 world is vital. For over a year the vast majority of
students in these nations have had no in-person schooling, and the
quality and access to remote alternatives has been uneven. Getting the
nations' young people back into the classroom will help staunch
immediate migratory exits by getting children off the streets and
providing them with renewed purpose and ties at home. It is also a path
to address longer-term root causes of migration, helping build skills,
knowledge, self-confidence, and community roots in the voters and
workers of the future.
The United States has a track record of programs that have tackled
some of the root causes of migration. Many of these have found success
in helping improve local lives--often at the neighborhood or municipal
level--of Central Americans. While many of these were halted under the
previous administration, these types of efforts to better conditions on
the ground can and should be restarted and expanded. Neighborhood and
school-based programs that work to reduce gang violence through
counseling, tutoring, and community service opportunities show promise
in reducing violence and shifting the calculations of young people as
to what their future can hold at home. So too do efforts to train young
people in professional and life skills, and to connect them to their
communities through local projects, cultural events, and economic
opportunities.
Programs to help farmers adjust to drought conditions, such as
introducing irrigation systems or rust-resistant coffee seedlings, can
help them keep their living and land at home, making it less necessary
to leave. Programs designed to connect them directly to markets or to
upgrade the profitability of the crops they grow can also ensure a more
sustainable future at home. Other programs providing seed money and
training for entrepreneurs have at times succeeded in creating economic
opportunities, improving people's prospects at home and shifting their
mindset about moving.
As the United States invests in these local community programs, it
needs to focus on and push for fundamental changes in the ways these
nations are governed. Without significant shifts in governance, the
push for citizens to leave will remain strong. This can and should
start with reinstating anti-corruption efforts, including backing
internationally supported investigatory bodies similar to those
shuttered in recent years in Guatemala and Honduras. It means pushing
for transparency in the use of international and taxpayer funds. And it
means turning directly to local civil society and non-governmental
organizations as partners for U.S.-backed programs, particularly in
countries where the national government is an unreliable partner. It
can also mean searching out and supporting subnational government
administrations and/or national level reformers in the quest to improve
governance. And more broadly, it means defending democratic checks and
balances and democracy in these nations.
The United States can play an important role in denying corrupt
leaders the ability to visit the United States or to use its financial
system to hold ill-gotten gains. And it can help prosecutors in these
countries build cases against corrupt elites.
______
The hundreds of thousands of Central Americans and Mexicans
crossing the southwestern U.S. border result from a similar number of
wrenching decisions: Individuals and families being forced to choose to
leave their homes, friends, and communities. While no single program or
approach will quickly change these calculations, a combination of
immediate and long-term investments, of national political reforms and
micro-level neighborhood interventions, and of multi-pronged programs
to address the myriad reasons for leaving is the best way to alter
these choices.
Migration from Mexico and Central America to the United States has
been going on for decades. Whatever the United States does, it will not
end either the deep inequalities or the deep familial ties between the
nations. But concerted efforts and investments at home can give more
Mexicans and Central Americans a choice when they consider migration,
rather than making it a necessity for them and their families to
survive.
Chairman Correa. Senor.
STATEMENT OF DANIEL A. RESTREPO, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR
AMERICAN PROGRESS
Mr. Restrepo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Meijer, and Members of the subcommittee. Thank you for your
invitation to participate in today's hearing. Disruption, there
is one idea I want you to take away from my testimony today, is
that to break a decades-long cycle of crisis response to
migration in the Americas, we need to disrupt our approach.
Disruption means appreciating that migration cannot be
prevented and deterred, at least not over time in a manner
consistent with our vast laws, values, and interests. Instead,
it must be mitigated, managed, and ordered. Disruption requires
us to look at today's topic, migration push factors, to do what
Shannon just did, to distinguish between the acute causes and
root causes of migration from northern Central America, and for
that matter, southern Mexico.
Making this distinction helps us understand what we can do
if we want people to be able to stay in their home communities
now and to relieve pressure from the U.S.-Mexico border in the
short-term and over the long-term to the greatest extent
possible. On acute causes, we need to start by addressing the
effects of hurricanes Eta and Iota. Two once-a-century storms
that made landfall in northern Central America 2 weeks and 15
miles apart in November 2020. Directly impacted 11 million
people across the region, displacing nearly 1 million and
contributing to growing food insecurity for 5\1/2\ million
people. We need to do so now.
After an anemic initial effort by the Trump administration,
the Biden administration has ramped up humanitarian assistance
with Vice President Harris, as has been mentioned, last month
announcing nearly $200 million for the on-going humanitarian
response. Together with Congress, the administration should
invest even greater resources in emergency food assistance and
in programs that put folks across the region to work rebuilding
their own community. Tapping into the desire of Central
Americans to build a better future would be far more cost-
effective than simply ramping up enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico
border.
The other acute cause of migration from Central America has
been COVID-19. That has led to significant pain among some of
the most economically vulnerable populations in the Western
Hemisphere, while claiming 15,000 lives in the course of the
last year. When it comes to a COVID response, the United States
is now, thankfully, in the position to help on something the
region desperately needs, and that is vaccines. Guatemala, the
region's larges population has vaccinated only 0.01 percent of
Guatemalans. Honduras hasn't done any better. They are at 0.03
percent. El Salvador, which is kind-of leading the way, is at
1.1 percent of the population vaccinated.
As the Biden administration begins to share surplus, high-
quality U.S. manufactured vaccines internationally, it should
prioritize our near abroad. Not simply as a good neighbor, but
as a smart neighbor who understands that what happens in these
countries, in effect, is happening in the United States, given
the deep interconnections we share.
People, of course, aren't on the move solely in response to
acute causes. They are, as Shannon pointed out, on the move
because of poverty and lack of economic opportunity, violence
and insecurity, weak governance and corruption, adverse effects
of the climate crisis, and the desire for family reunification,
among other reasons.
Effective migration management must address all these
reasons. But when it comes to root causes, we need to
understand that many are themselves symptoms of a deeper
challenge. The uncomfortable truth is that the economies and
societies of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are in
effect, designed to fail broad swaths of their populations in
the service of economic and political elite and increasingly
organized crime. Far too many of the people across the region
are treated, in essence, as export commodities by the powers
that be. Unless and until we can confront that reality head-on,
we will simply lurch from one emergency response to the next.
That leads to my last point about disruption. We must
intentionally seek to disrupt the failed status quo, to empower
good governance and market economics, to create conditions so
people can exercise the right not to have to migrate. The good
news, and there is good news, as outlined in my prepared
testimony and that of my colleague, is that the U.S.
Government, the Executive and Congress, working together and in
partnership with local civil society, including constructive
private-sector players, can disrupt the failed status quo by
focusing on governance, anti-corruption, transparency, and
other key approaches.
Thank you, again, for the opportunity to testify this
afternoon. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Restrepo follows:]
Prepared Statement of Daniel A. Restrepo
Thursday, May 6, 2021
The topic of today's hearing--addressing migration push factors--is
of vital importance as the United States once again finds itself
grappling with an increased number of migrants seeking entry between
ports along the U.S.-Mexico border.
As is implicit in today's topic, effective migration policy that
serves core U.S. National interests neither begins nor ends at our
Nation's physical borders. The reason for that is simple as the border
is just one point in a complex migratory system that stretches
thousands of miles in both direction from the line of demarcation
between the United States and Mexico set by the Treaty of Guadelupe-
Hidalgo in 1848.
Yet for the past 30 years, not just the past 4 years, the United
States has gotten migration policy wrong in no small part because we
have thought we could address migration exclusively at the U.S. border
and that we could enforce our way out of any challenge. We cannot, at
least not in a sustainable manner that is consistent with our laws and
our values.
To stand up a safe, orderly, and humane migration system work
certainly needs to be done at the border but also on both sides
thereof. Work that must be in service of a coherent strategy that
guides an interlocking set of domestic, border, and international
policies to bring order to migration in the Americas.
We must, for example, restore the rule of law and values to our
immigration system, enact changes to detention, enforcement, and
deportation policies and practices as well as address the status of
DACA and TPS recipients and undocumented ``essential workers'' as
President Biden has proposed doing in the Citizenship Act legislation
currently pending before Congress.
To promote order in migratory flows and restore U.S. humanitarian
and human rights leadership, we must also reform migrant processing and
protection mechanisms at the U.S.-Mexico border; ensure vulnerable
individuals who urgently need protection are afforded access thereto as
close to home as possible; and create and expand legal work pathways to
restore circularity to migration.
We must also work on the topic of today's hearing--migration push
factors--to help create conditions so individuals and families
throughout northern Central America can safely exercise their right to
live out their lives in their communities and countries of origin as so
many clearly wish to do.
understanding the push factors
As Members of this subcommittee and other policy makers look to
build a sustained, integrated approach to migration in the Americas and
as you look to address migration push factors it is vital to have a
sophisticated understanding of what leads people to migrate to the
United States in the first place.
Individuals from northern Central America are on move today for
myriad reasons, including poverty and lack of economic opportunity,
violence and insecurity, weak governance, corruption, natural
disasters, and a desire for family reunification. Any effective
migration management system must, at least, begin to address each of
those reasons.
But before delving into how, it is important to realize that many
of those ``push factors'' or ``root causes,'' like migration itself,
are symptoms of a deeper challenge. The uncomfortable truth is that the
economies and societies in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are, in
effect, designed to fail broad swaths of their populations in service
of the region's economic and political elites. Far too many people
across the region are treated, in essence, as export commodities by the
powers that be. Unless and until we confront that reality head-on, we
will simply lurch from crisis to crisis.
Being clear-eyed about the role of these entrenched, corrupt power
structures is critical to any successful U.S. policy approach that will
require a level of intrusiveness--on behalf of good governance and
market economics--that may be uncomfortable but is necessary to instill
hope among the people of northern Central America and to empower change
agents inside and outside of governments throughout the region.
Effectively addressing push factors also requires differentiating
between kinds of push factors as that differentiation helps think about
the most effective policy tools the U.S. Government has at its disposal
to address them. Fundamentally there are 2 kinds of push factors--acute
causes and root causes. And the U.S. policy tool kit for each is quite
distinct.
addressing the acute causes of migration
The most acute reasons forcing individuals to flee northern Central
America today are the still devastating effects of Hurricanes Eta and
Iota--two ``once-a-century storms'' that made landfall 15 miles and 2
weeks apart in November 2020--and the impact of COVID 19.
Eta and Iota adversely affected more than 11 million people across
a region already reeling from the economic impacts of the pandemic. The
storms displaced nearly 1 million people, many of whom have still not
been able to return home and devasted crops across the region.
The initial U.S. response to the hurricanes was, at best, anemic
with the Trump administration making available $42 million in disaster
relief, only $21 million of which was utilized. In comparison, in
response to Hurricane Mitch in 1998, the administration of then-
President Bill Clinton, working together with a Republican-led
Congress, provided nearly $1 billion in disaster relief and
reconstruction funding.
Although the Biden administration has taken steps to significantly
increase the disaster response, with Vice President Harris announcing
nearly $200 million in new humanitarian assistance for the region in
late April 2021 (USAID), the United Nations has warned that 5.5 million
people across the region are in urgent need of food assistance out of a
total of 10 million who are in need of humanitarian assistance in
general. Working together with the U.S. Congress, the Biden
administration can and should do more, in particular, to head off the
acute food crisis already unfolding across the region's rural sector.
Meeting the needs of those suffering from the impacts of Eta and
Iota also means helping address both the need for community-level
reconstruction and the need for immediate employment opportunities.
Fast-disbursing, cash-based programs can and should be stood up to do
just that.
It is vital U.S. policy recognize that the people of Central
America have agency; that the vast majority desperately want to build
better societies for themselves and their families. We should be
seeking to leverage that agency in every way possible to help them
achieve that desire.
The U.S. Government also has perhaps an unparalleled opportunity to
address the other acute cause of migration--the on-going devastating
effects of COVID-19 on the countries of northern Central America. In
the past 14 months, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras have
experienced at least 15,000 deaths from COVID-19. They have also seen
their economies contract by -8.6, -1.5, and -.8.0 percent (IMF)
respectively. And they are expected to bounce back less quickly than
most other parts of the Americas with projected economic growth in 2021
coming in at a 4.2-4.5 percent (IMF).
Although these countries need international support to address
these realities, what they need most acutely--especially Guatemala
(0.01 percent vaccinated) and Honduras (0.03 percent vaccinated)--are
vaccines. The United States, of course, has an increasing supply of
highly effective, U.S.-manufactured COVID-19 vaccines. As the Biden
administration begins to share vaccines broadly around the world, it
should ensure that it focus first on the countries that constitute our
``near abroad,'' that is the countries of Central America and the
Caribbean.
Doing so is not just about being a good neighbor, it is about being
a smart neighbor who understands that what happens in these countries
is, in effect, happening in the United States given the deep
interconnection we share with our geographically closest neighbors.
There is another cause of migration that is both acute and root
that the Biden administration and Congress can and should address--
corruption.
To understand why and how, consider the following: When a migrant
caravan formed on January 15, 2021 in San Pedro Sula, Honduras and its
members set out on their journey many did so chanting ``Fuera, Juan
Orlando, Fuera!'' or ``Out, Juan Orlando, Out!'' directed at Honduras'
notoriously corrupt president Juan Orlando Hernandez, a man has been
repeatedly identified by U.S. Federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-
conspirator in the successful drug prosecutions of his brother.
For many in Honduras today, migration is, at least in part, an act
of political protest. A clean break with Hernandez--by, at a bare
minimum, publicly sanctioning him--would send an unmistakable signal
that the U.S. approach this time is different. Sanctioning a sitting
president--a step that has only been used on very few occasions--is not
something to be done lightly, but it would make clear that the United
States is standing with the people of Central America and not the
corrupt keepers of the region's failed status quo. That in turn could
affect the decisional criteria of potential migrants in Honduras who
may see in that disruption the beginnings of a better future.
addressing the root causes of migration
Addressing the root cause of migration requires disrupting the
status quo across northern Central America in multiple ways. Such
disruption is not just, or even primarily, a question of U.S.
assistance resources and conditionality. Rather it is a question of the
Biden administration and those that will follow it, consistent with
demands from the U.S. Congress, being willing to use the United States'
outsized political influence to openly confront those who stand in the
way of structural reform and to back and foster champions of change--
inside and outside of government--across northern Central America.
As part of these efforts, the U.S. Government must aim to alter its
partner of choice in working on the root causes of migration. It must,
together with partners from across the international community, also
focus its efforts in new ways, beginning by placing a premium on
bolstering good governance. Finally, it must seek to alter--through
sticks and carrots--the incentives of elites across the region.
Partners of Choice.--In words and actions, the U.S. Government must
openly embrace and empower local civil society across the region as its
partners of choice and treat the governments of the region as limited
partners almost certain to disappoint over time until they prove
otherwise. This embrace must be manifest not only in the symbolic, but
also in the programmatic. Local civil society organizations should be
seen as a wellspring of ideas on how to positively enhance conditions
on the ground and promote rootedness among the people of northern
Central America, as well as implementing partners.
When it comes to the treatment of its partners, the United States
must also make clear that those--in civil society and in government--
who stand up in the anti-corruption fight will find protection in the
United States if, and when, they and their families need it. Recent
history has seen too many instances of the U.S. Government turning its
back on these champions. That must never be allowed to be repeated.
Another, potential disruptive U.S. partner could be large U.S.
companies with a significant on-the-ground presence across the region.
These companies, governed by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and
every day implored by their investors, employees, and customers to
account for the interests of a greater number of stakeholders, have a
vested interest in improving the business and societal environment in
northern Central America. Together with reform-minded entrepreneurs who
wish to disrupt the stranglehold on competition held by a small number
of actors in these countries, large U.S. companies can help advance
reforms in the seemingly mundane, yet critical, areas of electronic
invoicing, mandatory tax withholding, and similar practical reforms.
Such reforms improve the business environment for U.S. companies,
disrupt the stasis holding back competition, and help build governing
institutions across the region. Similarly, large multinational
companies can be change agents by promoting local philanthropy across
northern Central America to reduce the reliance on large foreign
donors.
Changing Emphasis.--In the past, U.S. assistance to the countries
of northern Central America has either ignored governance, put it in a
back seat, or, at best, sought to advance it simultaneous to efforts to
address prosperity and security. When it comes to expending U.S.
taxpayer dollars to effectively address root causes of migration the
lessons of the recent past are clear--every effort should be made to
put governance first.
A governance first approach to assistance in northern Central
America should include:
Renewing or strengthening anti-corruption bodies.--
Multilateral support missions for anticorruption efforts in
Guatemala and Honduras proved so effective in recent years that
corrupt elements in each country--with the Trump
administration's quiet acquiescence--successfully pushed back
and ended those missions. Going forward, every effort should be
made to reestablish anticorruption and transparency mechanisms
both at a national and regional level.
Deploying Multilateral Support Mechanisms for Tax, Customs,
and Procurement Authorities.--Much like international
investigators and prosecutors worked side-by-side to build and
prosecute cases with Central American counterparts through
multilateral-backed anti-corruption mechanisms, international
experts should be systematically deployed to work side-by-side
with tax, customs, and procurement officials across northern
Central America to further root out corruption where it is most
corrosive.
Embedding advisors to bolster key ministries.--U.S. civilian
experts and/or experienced partner-nation personnel should be
embedded in government agencies across northern Central
America, including ministries of defense, Ministerios Publicos,
and across the judicial sector in a systematic way to bolster
professionalism and political will.
Promoting robust Inspector Generals throughout civil
administration.--Condition whatever limited U.S. assistance
that passes through governments of the countries of northern
Central America on a proliferation of IGs inside key ministries
with autonomy and investigative capacity to safeguard
accountability, respect for the rule of law, and anti-
corruption.
As we begin to experience more direct migration from the region's
rural sectors, stabilizing those regions should be given greater
priority than has been the case before. Efforts should focus on
stimulating economic growth by enhancing the finance and market access
possibilities open to small farmers. Such steps should include:
Expanding access to weather-based crop insurance by
encouraging Central American government agencies and the
private banking sector to partner to provide large-scale, low-
premium, weather-based crop insurance to smallholder farmers.
Creating a jointly-financed, public-private commercializing
entity, supported by the U.S. International Development Finance
Corporation, to provide a phased-out-over-time price guarantee
to farmers and cooperatives who make the transition to
specialty or hybrid coffee plants, vegetables, or other non-
traditional crops to empower these farmers to compete against
existing cartels.
Developing innovative financing for small farmers in rural
areas, by working with partner governments, banking sectors and
fintech to create credit guarantees, risk-sharing facilities,
mobile banking, and joint credit product design for small and
medium farmers.
Prioritizing rural infrastructure investment that benefits
all forms of economic development, including roads (not just
highways but secondary and tertiary roads), water purification
plants, waste management, renewable energy sources like wind
and water, and investments in the coffee value chain.
A change in focus is also necessary when it comes to addressing
security throughout the region. It is vital that the U.S. Government
expand measures/definitions of ``insecurity'' to better formulate U.S.
policy responses and messaging. U.S. policy and policy makers have
focused too much on homicide rates as the definitive measure of
insecurity. Other crimes--particularly extortion and gender-based/
domestic violence--need to be more effectively tracked and factored
into policy responses to insecurity as homicide rates alone do not
appear to significantly affect perceptions of insecurity.
In the short-term, the United States must also surge resources and
capabilities to school- and family-based programs for at-risk youth in
communities most likely to be tipped toward remaining in their home
countries. To show results as quickly as possible and thus affect
public perceptions of hope, a surge of resources should focus on
communities and programs that have shown results in the past.
Crucially, to move the needle on migration mitigation, efforts should
not be concentrated initially in communities where gang activities are
most prevalent, though long-term progress will very much depend on
addressing these besieged areas. Instead, efforts should be focused on
migrant-sending communities where conditions are closest to being safe
for residents to choose to stay. Past efforts by U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) and the State Department's Bureau of
International Law Enforcement (INL) to integrate prevention and law
enforcement programs at the community level fell short and must be
significantly enhanced. Making ``place-based'' more than a slogan needs
to be a priority task for each U.S. Ambassador in northern Central
America and performance-assessment criteria for USAID and INL
personnel.
Alter Elite Incentives.--The deep interconnection between the
countries of northern Central America and the United States provides
the U.S. Government with considerable leverage when it comes to
altering behavior in those countries. In short, access--physical,
financial, and commercial--to the United States is a privilege. It
should be treated as such and denied to those who actively undermine
U.S. interests in northern Central America.
To that end, the U.S. Government should not be shy in using its
diplomatic and political leverage to condition and coerce political and
economic elites to implement intrusive and far-reaching reforms that
both foster space for free-market competition and provide sufficient
social safety nets to protect the most vulnerable. This means naming
and shaming individuals who seek to subvert reform efforts; sanctioning
those who are engaged in corruption, subversion of democratic norms,
and human rights abuses; and being public about a willingness to seek
extradition in high-profile corruption cases with sufficient nexus to
the United States.
To channel the interest of those members of the private sector who
seek to be part of the solution in northern Central America and to
expand the resources available to scale effective programs, the U.S.
Government should work with governments across the region to create a
Northern Triangle Public-Private Partnership Enterprise Fund. Such a
$500M enterprise fund could be funded through the purchase of zero-
interest government bonds by individuals from across the region. The
Enterprise Fund could then back public-private partnership projects
carefully designed to promote competition rather than to harden
existing economic disparities and structures.
conclusion
The challenge of mitigating and managing migration from northern
Central America and relieving pressure on the U.S.-Mexico border is
real. But it is not insurmountable.
An integrated strategy that advances simultaneously at home, at the
border, and in the region can usher in an era of safe, orderly, and
humane migration management that advances core U.S. National interests.
In the region, that requires addressing the reasons people are on the
move today; creating legal avenues for migration; and intentionally
disrupting the failed status across the region in such a way to give
hope and opportunity for those countless Central Americans who simply
want to exercise the right not have to migrate.
Chairman Correa. Thank you, Mr. Restrepo. Now, I would like
to recognize Mr. Ruiz Soto to summarize his statement in 5
minutes. Welcome, sir.
STATEMENT OF ARIEL G. RUIZ SOTO, POLICY ANALYSIS, MIGRATION
POLICY INSTITUTE
Mr. Ruiz Soto. Thank you. Chairman Correa, Ranking Member
Meijer, and Members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today before you. My name is Ariel Ruiz
Soto, and I am a policy analyst at the Migration Policy
Institute, a non-partisan, independent research institution
focused on practical and effective policy options for managing
immigration.
Heightened levels of migrant families and children arriving
at the U.S.-Mexico border are a symptom of a long-standing
regional crisis in Central America, and no past U.S. policies,
whether tougher or more humane, have effectively addressed the
underlying root causes of migration. Thus, the Biden
administration's resolve to engage with our regional partners
to address the causes of irregular migration is encouraging.
Economic stagnation, persistent violence, insecurity,
corruption, and a multitude of other factors intersect to
influence migrants' decisions to leave Central America for the
United States. While some of the factors are wide-spread across
El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, others manifest
differently across and within these countries.
Meeting the challenges of this crisis requires establishing
a flexible, resilient, regional immigration management system
that spans from Canada to Panama. Laying out the foundation for
this type of system now can reduce the boom-and-bust cycles of
migration and help manage overlapping crises thousands of miles
south of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Addressing the root push factors of migration from Central
America through investment and development is an essential
pillar of this regional migration strategy and will be the
focus of my remarks. But equally as important to this strategy
is creating temporary labor migration pathways, building
humanitarian protection, and ensuring transparent and rule-
based border enforcement.
Notably, the relationship between migration and development
assistance is complex. Literature suggests that the reductions
in outward migration take years of consistent and elevated
assistance that develops broader economic and governance
structures simultaneously with investment in community
livelihood opportunities. As such, development is more
efficient at shaping how migration occurs, promoting legal over
illegal migration, rather than deterring migration altogether.
Evidence from previous iterations of the U.S. Strategy on
Engagement in Central America points to some promising
initiatives already under way in the region. In the short term,
tailored community-based assistance and development programs
that focus on violence prevention and security for at-risk
populations have the most potential in addressing the root
causes in the region and reduce irregular migration for some
groups. Examples include job training and education programs
for youth in Guatemala's Western Highlands, improving watershed
management and nutrition in farms across Honduras, and
community-based crime and violence prevention programs in the
urban hubs in El Salvador.
Through the U.S. strategy, we have also learned about on-
going challenges, from program design to political will, in
Central America. Therefore, as the U.S. Government considers
increasing assistance in development programs to address the
root causes of migration, governments, policy makers, and
program implementers should consider the next 4 vetting
principles: 1. Assistance programs that provide financial
support or skill training while simultaneously strengthening
local opportunities are best positioned to lessen irregular
migration flows; 2. Building in monitoring and evaluation
mechanisms in the design of programs promotes sustainability
and flexibility to focus on the programs that do work; 3.
Adjusting country-specific withholding requirements by the
State Department to disburse key types of assistance can
quickly strengthen continuity and build on program results; and
finally, 4. Incorporating actors of civil society and private
sector in the design of these programs fosters a sense of co-
responsibility and raises government accountability.
Through a combination of smart development assistance and
investments that support governance measures in the region, the
United States can help alleviate deep-rooted economic
stagnation, violence, crime, and promote local resilience to
climate change in Central America. But even in the best-case
scenario, development assistance alone is not enough to reduce
irregular migration. Assistance programs should be considered
complementary to other pillars of an effective regional
migration strategy. Laying a foundation that promotes efficient
and fair protection systems, legal employment pathways, and
immigration enforcement-based rule of law is the best
combination to promote safe, legal, and orderly migration.
Finally, under this regional migration, migration management is
the responsibility of every country, and as institutional
capacity improves, the region will be better equipped to
respond to future changes in migration flows.
With that, I conclude my testimony and I look forward to
your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Soto follows:]
Prepared Statement Ariel G. Ruiz Soto
Thursday, May 6, 2021
Chairman Correa, Ranking Member Meijer, and Members of the
subcommittee: Thank you for the opportunity to testify today before the
U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Oversight, Management, and Accountability. My name is
Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, and I am a policy analyst at the Migration Policy
Institute, a non-partisan, independent research institution focused on
practical and effective policy options for managing immigration.
Heightened levels of migrant families and children arriving at the
U.S.-Mexico border are a symptom of a long-standing regional crisis in
Central America, and no past U.S. policies--whether tougher or more
humane--have effectively addressed the underlying root causes of
migration. Thus, the Biden administration's resolve to engage with our
regional partners to address these causes of irregular migration in
Central America is encouraging. Particularly, the recent announcement
by Vice President Harris to provide $310 million in increased U.S.
assistance to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador prioritizes much-
needed immediate humanitarian concerns resulting from the devastation
of 2 hurricane landings in November and the persistent effects of the
COVID-19 pandemic, both of which exacerbated the already-difficult
conditions in these countries.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), ``United
States Announces Increased Assistance for the People of El Salvador,
Guatemala, and Honduras,'' updated May 3, 2021.
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Meeting the challenges of this crisis requires establishing a
flexible, resilient, regional migration management system spanning from
Canada to Panama. And laying the foundation for this type of system now
can reduce boom-and-bust cycles of migration and help manage
overlapping crises thousands of miles south of the U.S.-Mexico
border.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Andrew Selee and Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, ``The Regional Migration
Crisis Is in Central America: To Stem the Flow, the United States Needs
to Invest in the Region,'' Foreign Affairs, April 13, 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Addressing the root push factors of migration from Central America
through investment and development is an essential pillar of this
regional migration system and will be the focus on my remarks. Equally
as important, however, to this regional strategy is creating temporary
labor migration pathways, rebuilding humanitarian protection systems,
and ensuring transparent and rule-based border enforcement.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Andrew Selee and Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, Building a New Regional
Migration System: Redefining U.S. Cooperation with Mexico and Central
America (Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, November 2020).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notably, the relationship between migration and development
assistance is complex. And literature suggests that reductions in
outward migration take years of consistent and elevated assistance that
develops broader economic and governance structures simultaneously with
investment in community livelihood opportunities.\4\ As such,
development is more efficient at shaping how migration occurs--
promoting legal over illegal migration--rather than deterring migration
altogether.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Susan Fratzke and Brian Salant, ``Moving Beyond `Root Causes:'
The Complicated Relationship between Development and Migration,''
(Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, January 2018); Michael A.
Clemens, ``The Emigration Life Cycle: How Development Shapes Emigration
from Poor Countries,'' (Center for Global Development, Working Paper
540, August 2020); Richard H. Adams and John Page, ``International
Migration, Remittances, and Poverty in Developing Countries'' (policy
research working paper 3179, Poverty Reduction Group, World Bank Group,
Washington, DC, December 2003); Robert E.B. Lucas, ``Migration and
Economic Development in Africa: A Review of Evidence,'' Journal of
African Economies 15, no. 2 (2006): 337-95.
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At a moment of great interest in addressing the root causes of
migration and with the possibility of harmonizing regional investment
efforts, I underscore the importance of leveraging existing research
evidence and previous efforts under the U.S. Strategy for Engagement in
Central America to identify promising assistance and development
programs that can shape irregular migration in the short term--grounded
in the idea of instilling hope in the near term. To overcome design and
implementation challenges, my remarks outline recommendations that can
increase the success of these programs and contextualize how assistance
and development fit within a more sustainable regional migration
system.
the drivers of migration from central america
Economic stagnation, persistent violence and insecurity,
corruption, and a multitude of other factors intersect and influence
migrants' decision to leave Central America for the United States.
While some of these factors are wide-spread across El Salvador,
Guatemala, and Honduras, others manifest differently across and within
these countries.
Lack of employment opportunities in the formal market suppress
economic growth in all 3 countries and propel workers to head
northward. For instance, each year nearly 362,000 youth (ages 15-29)
across the 3 countries enter a labor market that creates only
approximately 127,000 new jobs.\5\ This mismatch between labor supply
and demand is particularly acute in Guatemala and Honduras, with
younger populations and faster growth than in El Salvador. Furthermore,
high poverty levels prevail in the 3 countries with more than half of
Guatemalans and Hondurans and 40 percent of Salvadorans living in
poverty, according to projections by the U.N. Economic Commission on
Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Alicia Barcena, ``Diagnostico, Areas de oportunidad y
recomendaciones de la CEPAL'' (presentation, Mexico City, May 20,
2019).
\6\ El Economista, ``Mayor impacto de la pobreza en El Salvador que
resto de Centroamerica, Cepal,'' El Economista, July 16, 2020.
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The COVID-19 pandemic magnified these regional economic pressures
in 2020 as GDP contracted by 3 percent in Guatemala and between 8 and 9
percent in Honduras and El Salvador.\7\ And with large shares of
workers employed in the informal labor sector, these economic pressures
have especially affected already-vulnerable workers lacking access to
benefits.\8\ After falling in early 2020, migrant remittances bounced
back midyear, providing a lifeline to insulate some of the pandemic's
economic shock.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ CEPAL, ``America Latina y el Caribe: proyecciones de
crecimiento, 2020-2021,'' updated December 2020.
\8\ The average share of workers employed in the informal sector in
the 2010-2017 period were: 74 percent in Honduras; 65 percent in El
Salvador; and 63 percent in Guatemala. See Organizacion Internacional
del Trabajo, Diagnostico sobre economia informal: enfasis en el sector
comercio de los paises del norte de Centroamerica: El Salvador,
Honduras y Guatemala (Oficina de la OIT para America Central, Haiti,
Panama y Republica Dominicana, 2020).
\9\ Luis Noe-Bustamante, ``Amid COVID-19, remittances to some Latin
American nations fell sharply in April, then rebounded,'' updated
August 31, 2020.
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In addition, persistent violence fuels real and perceived levels of
insecurity in Central America. Despite dramatic decreases in the
homicide rates in El Salvador and Honduras (36 and 43 per 100,000
inhabitants, respectively), these remained among the highest in the
world as of 2019.\10\ Violence against women is particularly rampant in
Honduras where the femicide rate is 6 per 100,000 women, compared to
the world average of 2 per 100,000 women.\11\ Violence in the forms of
crime and extortion, moreover, is less visible but ever present in the
3 countries. Furthermore, annually 1 in 5 residents in the 3 countries
report being victims of a crime, and 1 in 10 residents in Honduras and
El Salvador report experiencing extortion every year.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ The World Health Organization (WHO) considers a rate of 10
homicides per 100,000 inhabitants to be characteristic of endemic
violence. According to preliminary data compiled by InSight Crime,
homicide rates continued to fall in 2020: 37.6 per 100,000 residents in
Honduras; 19.7 per 100,000 in El Salvador; and 15.3 per 100,000 in
Guatemala. See Peter J. Meyer, ``U.S. Strategy for Engagement in
Central America: An Overview,'' (Washington, DC: Congressional Research
Service, February 2021); Selee and Ruiz Soto, Building a New Regional
Migration System, pg. 6.
\11\ For femicide rates in Latin America, see Gender Equality
Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean, ``Femicide or
feminicide,'' accessed May 2, 2021; for world average, see The World
Bank, ``Intentional homicides, female (per 100,000 female),'' accessed
May 2, 2021.
\12\ Figures reflect latest Latin American Public Opinion Project
(LAPOP) survey year publicly available in each country. See, Dinorah
Azpuru, ``Estudio de la cultura politica de la democracia en Guatemala,
2019,'' Presentation for LAPOP Americas Barometer, revised August 2019;
Daniel Montalvo, ``Resultados preliminares 2019: Barometro de las
Americas en Honduras,'' Presentation for LAPOP Americas Barometer,
September 2019; Vanderbilt University, ``Analisis preliminar del
Barometro de las Americas de LAPOP: El Salvador 2018,'' Presentation
for LAPOP Americas Barometer, updated September 2019.
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The nature of violence varies from country to country, but it
includes violence driven by international organized crime tied to drug
trafficking (primarily in Honduras and parts of Guatemala), the
consolidation of powerful gangs (especially in El Salvador and
Honduras), and political conflict (especially in Honduras and parts of
Guatemala). Domestic violence is also present within the region and is
a common push factor among Guatemalan women.
Corruption is another important driving force behind migration. All
3 of the Central American countries rate among the most corrupt in the
world on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index,
with Honduras and Guatemala ranking in the top 30 least trustworthy
after expelling their international anti-corruption commissions in 2020
and 2019, respectively.\13\ High-level corruption undermines people's
faith in government, encouraging people to migrate. So does more
mundane corruption among criminals, the police, and low-level public
officials that makes life difficult on a day-to-day basis and
contributes to the decisions of many to seek better lives
elsewhere.\14\ In Guatemala, for example, intention to migrate is 83
percent higher among victims of corruption than non-victims.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Transparency International, ``Corruption Perception Index,
2020,'' accessed May 3, 2021.
\14\ Selee and Ruiz Soto, ``The Regional Migration Crisis Is in
Central America.''
\15\ USAID, ``Irregular Migration,'' updated May 4, 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The 2 storms that devastated Central America in November 2020 were
harbingers of a final problem driving people away from the region:
Climate change. Longer periods of drought combined with more frequent
hurricanes seem to be hitting farmers in the ``Dry Corridor''
particularly hard and changing their way of life. Especially in
Guatemala and Honduras, which have predominantly rural economies, these
climate changes have augmented food insecurity among farmers. A recent
study finds that decreases in precipitation are associated with
increased emigration at department level, magnified further by higher
homicide rates.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Sarah Bermeo and David Leblang, ``Honduras Migration: Climate
Change, Violence, and Assistance,'' (Policy Brief, Center for
International Development, March 2021).
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promising u.s. assistance and development programs
As aforementioned, for assistance and development efforts to reduce
migration flows requires years of continuous investment. But by
targeting violence prevention and food security programs in communities
with high emigration rates and focusing on at-risk youth, these efforts
have the potential to reshape illegal migration flows in the short-
term.\17\ Therefore, as the U.S. Government considers increasing
assistance and development programs to address the root causes of
migration in the region, identifying and expanding promising programs
can mediate some migration flows.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ Peter J. Meyer, Honduras: Background and U.S. Relations
(Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, April 2020), pg. 19;
Michael A. Clemens, ``Violence, Development, and Migration Waves:
Evidence from Central American Child Migrant Apprehensions,'' (Center
for Global Development, Working Paper 459, July 2017).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evaluation of U.S. assistance programs is limited, but the latest
results from fiscal year 2019 broadly demonstrate that community-
oriented programs focused on job creation and workforce development,
especially among youth, may have promising effects in the short-term.
That year, USAID programs contributed to the creation of nearly 30,000
jobs and 17,000 at-risk youth completed work force development
programs, the majority in Guatemala. Approximately 39,000 youth (ages
10-29) at risk of violence, primarily in Honduras, trained in social
and leadership skills through governance-oriented programs. These
programs are associated with an increase in local public confidence to
prosecute and convict homicide perpetrators in Guatemala and Honduras,
though confidence levels fell in El Salvador. Trust in police also
increased to nearly 30 percent in Guatemala and Honduras but decreased
in El Salvador.\18\ Other exogenous factors may account for the
difference in results in El Salvador.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ U.S. Department of State and USAID, ``Progress Report for the
United States Strategy for Central America's Plan for Monitoring and
Evaluation,'' accessed May 2, 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another example of promising programs are Model Police Precincts
(MPP) sites targeting high-crime geographic areas, which employ a
community-oriented and problem-solving approach to policing with the
aim to reduce crime and improve citizen relations with the police. In
these sites, the number of homicides decreased between fiscal year 2018
and fiscal year 2019 in El Salvador (29 percent) and Guatemala (8
percent), though homicides increased slightly (4 percent) in Honduras
during the same period.\19\ Other research notes that U.S. support for
expanded application of trauma-informed interventions for communities
reduced violence indicators.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Ibid.
\20\ Jeff Ernst, Kelly Josh, Eric L. Olson, Kristen Sample, and
Ricardo Zuniga, U.S. Foreign Aid to the Northern Triangle 2014-2019:
Promoting Success by Learning from the Past, (Washington, DC: Wilson
Center, Latin American Program, December 2020).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
More specifically, existing USAID programs in each country point to
promising practices. In Guatemala, a Puentes Project supports 25,000
youth in 25 municipalities in the Western Highlands with high migration
rates to complete their education and find new or better employment,
partially by helping private-sector employers expand their businesses
and hire trained youth. Another program, Feed the Future, seeks to
improve agricultural incomes, improve resilience, and enhance
nutritional outcomes for small farmers and their families by providing
technical assistance and training on best practices and supporting
diversification of income-generating value chains, while working with
Government to implement rural development, agricultural, and food
security policies.\21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ USAID, ``USAID/Guatemala Country Fact Sheet,'' updated April
2020.
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In Honduras, Empleando Futuros seeks to provide vocational training
to at least 7,500 at-risk youth in urban neighborhoods, linking them to
jobs with the expectation that at least half of them obtain a job or
improve their current employment. A former violence prevention program,
Proponte Mas, invested in providing family intervention therapy and
risk-reduction services to a minimum of 2,000 youth and their families
in Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, Choloma, Tela, and La Ceiba to prevent
them from engaging in crime. To strengthen communities' resilience to
economic shocks, a U.S. and Honduran government initiative seeks to
generate employment in rural areas and improve watershed management and
nutrition to decrease poverty and undernutrition in western Honduras,
moving 10,000 families out of extreme poverty and reducing stunting of
children below age 5 by 20 percent in targeted communities.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ USAID, ``USAID/Honduras Country Fact Sheet,'' updated August
2018.
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Largely focused on prevention, protection, and prosecution, U.S.
assistance in El Salvador generally targets the urban hubs of San
Salvador, San Miguel, and Santa Ana which account for most of the
irregular migration and insecurity in the country.\23\ Aligned with
government efforts to establish 55 municipal prevention councils, a
former program aimed to expand municipal-led, community-based crime and
violence prevention to 114 communities in 20 high-risk municipalities,
supporting youth centers and municipal prevention centers nation-wide.
Like capacity training programs in Guatemala and Honduras, Bridges for
Employment sought to improve technical and soft skills of Salvadoran
youth to obtain new jobs and promote linkages between private-sector
needs and training centers to reduce youth vulnerability to gang
recruitment. Additionally, a Justice Sector Strengthening program aided
the Supreme Court, Prosecutor's Office, Public Defender's Office, and
the National Police to improve investigation techniques and inter-
institutional coordination and establish efficient systems and
procedures to facilitate access to justice.\24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ USAID, Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) fiscal
year 2020-2025, updated on March 24, 2021.
\24\ USAID, ``USAID/El Salvador Country Fact Sheet,'' updated July
2018.
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challenges to successfully addressing the region's migration factors
Orienting targeted, community-based assistance and development
programs to address the root causes of migration is not enough on its
own to produce short- and long-term results. Under Democratic and
Republican administrations, the U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central
America has confronted significant challenges both in its design and
implementation that have limited its efficacy and presented an
incomplete response to migration flows.
Programs and activities funded under the U.S. strategy often lack
rigorous monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to understand their
direct effects on promoting prosperity, enhancing security, and
improving governance--as well as their subsequent effects on migration
flows. A 2019 Government Accountability Organization report, for
instance, documents that ``evaluations were conducted unevenly across
agencies and sectors'' and the existing evaluation plan ``does not
include a plan for evaluations of projects conducted by agencies other
than State and USAID.''\25\ In other instances, project implementers
did not collect vital data to assess progress toward the objectives.
Additional transparency and reporting of these indicators, beyond the
individual program's achievements, is necessary to isolate the impact
on migration flows, particularly in the short term.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), U.S. Assistance
to Central America: Department of State Should Establish a
Comprehensive Plan to Assess Progress toward Prosperity, Governance,
and Security (Washington, DC: GAO, September 2019), pg. 25.
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A second key challenge in levering U.S. assistance and development
to address the root causes of migration is the related and compounding
effects of political will and resistance to anticorruption and good
governance reforms, particularly considering the varying levels of
cooperation across the 3 Central American countries.\26\ This challenge
proved significantly difficult to overcome under previous efforts to
couple the U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America and the Plan
of Alliance for Prosperity in Central America, through which the 3
countries committed to a 5-year investment of $22 billion to create
incentives for people to remain in their own countries, but lacked
transparency to evaluate project accomplishments.\27\ In the next phase
of the U.S. strategy led by the Biden administration, the withdrawal of
international anti-corruption agencies from Guatemala and Honduras, and
more recently an overhaul of the Constitutional Court and the Attorney
General in El Salvador, pose significant doubts of political will to
enact reforms in the region.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ Ernst et al., U.S. Foreign Aid to the Northern Triangle 2014-
2019.
\27\ Peter J. Meyer, U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central
America: Policy Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional
Review Service, November 2019).
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One option to bolster political will in the region is to reexamine
and restructure the layered conditions on foreign aid that these
Central America governments must meet to disburse assistance under the
U.S. strategy. For example, the Secretary of State must certify that
individual governments are addressing 16 different issues of
Congressional concern prior to releasing 50 percent of assistance
approved by Congress.\28\ To maintain continuity among programs deemed
effective in reducing irregular migration, Congress should consider
lowering requirements to disburse key types of assistance--like
humanitarian and food security programs--while increasing requirements
for other types of assistance to leverage political will. Still,
balancing investment priorities and withholding criteria, which at
times has included requirements to step-up migration management, in
practice requires careful consideration to avoid counterproductive
delays in program implementation as has occurred in previous iterations
of the U.S. strategy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the same time, the United States Government and international
organizations can tackle these challenges by incorporating actors from
civil society and the private sector into the design of these programs
to foster a sense of co-responsibility and subsequently raise
government accountability. Following the promising model of community-
level assistance programs that leverage existing resources across
government institutions, establishing this multi-dimensional approach
to addressing the factors of migration may lead to more sustainable
results.
conclusions
Breaking the boom-and-bust cycles of migration flows at the U.S.-
Mexico border and in the region requires a steadfast and long-term
commitment to changing the conditions propelling migrants to leave
Central America. Yet, tailored, community-based assistance and
development programs that focus on violence prevention and food
security for at-risk populations can reshape irregular migration from
Central America in the near term. To build successful programs,
governments, policy makers, and program implementors should consider
the following recommendations:
1. Assistance programs that provide financial support or skills
training while simultaneously strengthening local opportunities
are best positioned to lessen irregular migration flows;
2. Building in monitoring and evaluation mechanisms in the design
of programs promotes sustainability of successful programs and
flexibility to amend them if they are not efficient for
particular populations;
3. Adjusting country-specific withholding requirements to disburse
key types of assistance quickly can strengthen continuity and
build on program results; and
4. Incorporating actors from civil society and the private sector
in the design of programs fosters a sense of co-responsibility
and raises government accountability.
Through a combination of smart development assistance and
investments that support governance measures in the region, the United
States can help alleviate deep-rooted economic stagnation, violence,
crime and promote local resilience to climate change in Central
America. But even in the best-case scenario, development assistance
alone is not enough to reduce irregular migration. Rather, assistance
programs should be considered complementary to the other pillars of an
effective regional migration system. Laying a foundation that promotes
efficient and fair asylum systems, legal employment pathways, and
immigration enforcement based on rule of law is the best combination to
promote safe, legal, and orderly migration. Under this regional system,
migration management is the responsibility of every country, and as
institutional capacity improves, the region will be better equipped to
respond to changes in migration flows.
Chairman Correa. I recognize Sheriff Hinkley to summarize
his statement for 5 minutes. Welcome, sir. Sheriff Hinkley,
welcome, sir.
STATEMENT OF STEVEN HINKLEY, SHERIFF, CALHOUN COUNTY, MICHIGAN
Mr. Hinkley. Thank you. Good afternoon Congressman Meijer
and Members of the subcommittee. For some, I think it may be
good morning. I am Sheriff Steve Hinkley with the Calhoun
County Sheriff's Office located in Marshall, Michigan. I am
pleased to testify before the subcommittee today to discuss the
crisis at the Southern Border and how it may impact northern
communities when unaccompanied children are placed into
communities for temporary or long-term sheltering.
On or around April 12 of this year, over 100 unaccompanied
migrant children arrived at a location called Starr
Commonwealth, which is in the Sheridan Township in Calhoun
County. At this time, there was little, if any, information
communicated with local officials regarding plans for the
potential impact to the local communities.
With already razor-thin emergency services existing in many
communities, including ours, we were extremely concerned on the
burden that it may cause to local citizens. Eventually Starr
Commonwealth communicated that the Federal Government would
handle all aspects of housing needs, and there would be
absolutely no impact to any local community services.
Unfortunately, most of that information proved to be
inaccurate. And a much deeper overhaul assessment must be
considered and outlined, regarding our local emergency services
laws and capabilities.
The Federal Protection Services have been assigned to
secure the perimeter of the campus with missions including
unauthorized entry and exit from the 305-acre campus. It was
really critical to understand the legal role and the authority
of specific law enforcement agencies and it is impossible that
the Federal protection agencies can enforce State or local
laws. Simply said, the property of Starr Commonwealth is
propriety. It is not Federal property and it does not fall
under any Federal jurisdiction. So, anything that happens on
that campus to children, staff, or any individual occupying the
campus, falls under the local jurisdiction of the sheriff or
the State police.
To say that the local law services may not be affected
would be essentially impossible. Shortly after the arrival of
the first unaccompanied migrant children to the campus, a
meeting was had with the authorities and some clear outlines
were established. The Federal protection would be protecting
the perimeter of the facility only, and they would not be
interacting or policing any of the unaccompanied children in
the facility in case there was a crisis or an emergency.
All private security at the facility does not have law
enforcement authority. It was made clear that they would not be
interacting or assisting during a crisis, that they would
monitor and they would call 9-1-1 local law enforcement. Then
Starr Commonwealth indicated they did not have any plans for
any type of restraint or de-escalation team in the event there
was an emergency crisis with the children. Again, they would
call 9-1-1 and emergency services would respond.
To summarize, it is not my intent in any way, shape, or
form to take away from the humanitarian message or the role in
this case, but it is to outline the importance of
collaboration, communication, and most importantly, funding to
local jurisdictions that are affected in these cases to build
the success of all.
Any type of Federal actions or decisions in these regards
will have an enormous impact on emergency services and place
partial, if not all, of the safety and security
responsibilities in the lap of local authorities.
I thank you and I am humbled to sit here and have this
opportunity to testify about my experience. I am happy to
answer any questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hinkley follows:]
Prepared Statement of Steven Hinkley
local perspectives on dhs immigration crisis
Good afternoon Congressman Meijer and Members of the subcommittee,
I am Sheriff Steve Hinkley with the Calhoun County Sheriff's Office
located in Marshall, Michigan. I am pleased to testify before this
subcommittee today to discuss the crisis at the Southern Border and how
it may impact northern communities when unaccompanied children are
placed into communities for temporary or long-term sheltering.
On or around April 12, 2021, over 100 unaccompanied migrant
children arrived at Starr Commonwealth Campus in the Township of
Sheridan, Calhoun County, Michigan. At that time, there was little, if
any, information communicated with local officials regarding plans or
the potential economic impact to our local communities. With razor-thin
emergency services already existing in many communities, including
ours, we were extremely concerned on the burden it may cause to our
local citizens. Eventually, Starr Commonwealth communicated that the
Federal Government would handle all aspects of the housing, all needs,
and there would be no impact on any local community services.
Unfortunately, most of that information is not accurate. A much deeper
overall assessment must be considered and outlined regarding our local
emergency services, laws, and capabilities.
Federal protective services have been assigned to secure the
perimeter of the campus with missions including unauthorized entry and
exit from the 305-acre campus. It is critical to understand the legal
role and authority of specific law enforcement agencies and it is
impossible that Federal protection agencies can enforce State and local
laws. Simply said, the property at Starr Commonwealth is proprietary,
not Federal property and does not fall under specific Federal
jurisdiction. Anything that happens on the campus to children, staff,
or any individual occupying the campus, falls under the local
jurisdiction of the sheriff and State police. To say that local
services may not be affected, is impossible.
Shortly after the arrival of the first unaccompanied migrant
children to the campus, a meeting was established with authorities and
some clear outlines were established.
The Federal protection would be protecting the perimeter of
the facility only and they would not be interacting or policing
any of the unaccompanied children in the facility.
All private security at the facility does not have law
enforcement authority and it was made clear that they would not
be interacting with any of the children or staff at the
facility. They would only monitor and call 9-1-1 if there was
an issue.
Starr Commonwealth indicated that they did not have any
plans for any type of a restraint or de-escalation team in the
event there was an issue with any of the children and they
again would call 9-1-1 for any type of law enforcement or
emergency services.
To summarize, it is not my intent to take away from the
humanitarian message or role, but to outline the importance for
collaboration, communication, and most importantly funding. Any type of
Federal actions or decisions in these regards will have an enormous
impact on emergency services and place partial, if not all, safety and
security responsibilities in the lap of local authorities.
I thank you for the opportunity today to testify about my
experience and I am happy to answer any questions you may have.
Chairman Correa. I am glad you accepted our opportunity to
be here today, and we will have some questions for you in a
minute. I thank all the witnesses today for their testimony. I
will remind the subcommittee Members that each of us will have
5 minutes to question the panel. Now, I will recognize myself
for 5 minutes of questions.
I am going to start out by asking Mr. Ruiz Soto, during
your testimony, you talked about some good investments have
been made in Central America and you talked about some bad
investments that maybe empowered corrupt individuals in Central
America. Can you elaborate where you see some bad investments
that maybe as a Nation that we made and how we can fix that
moving forward? I don't want to see American tax dollars end up
in a Swiss bank account somewhere.
Mr. Ruiz Soto. Thank you, Congressman. So, to be clear, one
of the key things that we have found is that throughout the
U.S. strategy for engagement in Central America, more is needed
to be able to provide clear guidance of what is working. What
we have so far pointed out--as I mentioned in my testimony,
that the most effective programs are doing the focus on
smaller, local level practices. The ones that are less
effective, at least have less results so far, I should say, are
those that focus on the broader sort of issues that go more or
less to try to create jobs and without a plan on how to
evaluate them.
There is a lot to be said about training programs. I think
the best evidence that we found so far is for youth. Especially
for youth in municipalities in high migration areas. In other
parts of the countries, for example, in Honduras, less is the
case and there is less evidence of programs that focus, for
example, on tying job opportunities with some other key sectors
and private-sector components.
That doesn't mean that these are not reliable and that we
should stop them, but what I am saying here is that we should
begin to evaluate them better and be able to be more flexible
from one program to another.
The key component here that is also important to mention is
that these programs are most effective when they have support
of the local governments as well. What we saw in El Salvador,
for example, is that the smaller investments, even in security
measures, were most effective at reducing violence--not just
homicides, but violence--when they had the buy-in from the
local governments.
Chairman Correa. Are you saying, Mr. Ruiz, that we have got
to have our local folks from the U.S. Embassy, folks that
oversee this operation, working with the locals, with the local
churches, as opposed to just dropping it in the local Federal
Government and hope to God that it goes to the right place?
Mr. Ruiz Soto. You are right that the programs are most
effective when they have the local cooperation and coordination
with international partners.
Chairman Correa. Thank you very much. I am running out of
time here. So, very quickly, I want to ask Ms. O'Neil and Mr.
Restrepo. We have had spikes in the past, 2014, 2016, 2018,
2019. We have had a terrible situation in Central America about
50, 60 years. Can you make a correlation? Is there a
correlation we can draw between these spikes in instability,
natural disasters in Central America?
Ms. O'Neil. I will start and then Dan, I will turn to you.
Yes, when there are immediate causes, acute causes, you do tend
to see a spike. So, we have seen both from the hurricanes, as
well as I would say, COVID-19. You know, the economies are
being destroyed.
The one thing I did want to make sure that we have on the
table too is, yes, it is Central Americans coming in at some of
the peaks that we have seen over the last decade. But it is,
again, Mexicans who are starting to come. Particularly, over
the last 9 to 12 months we have seen Mexicans----
Chairman Correa. Why is that?
Ms. O'Neil [continuing]. Starting to come in.
Chairman Correa. Why is that?
Ms. O'Neil. It is many of these same reasons. There is
increasing violence in that nation. It is the lack of economic
opportunity. It is COVID-19 destroying big parts of the economy
there. It is the pull of community ties, family ties, and
economic opportunity here in the United States. We are a
country that we share a very long border with.
Chairman Correa. Thank you. Mr. Restrepo.
Mr. Restrepo. Yes, so, it comes from in part, a response to
detonating events, right? So, it is the storms that hit the
region in late 2020. It is COVID. But there is also steady
peak. It is also from--we have, and Ariel got to this--you need
a systemic--people are on the move for a bunch of different
reasons. But we don't actually have a system that accommodates
any of the reasons, right? We have a kind-of one place, one
door, one place where if you are on the move because you need
protection, you can't find it close to home. Or if you are
looking for family reunification, there is no line to get into.
There is no means of doing that legally.
So, you are forcing everybody to come to the U.S. border.
We have been doing this for decades--this is not new--to claim
asylum. That is why part of this response is addressing these
acute causes, these root causes, but also setting up mechanisms
so people have optionality. So, you can order this migration.
This isn't that many people on the move if it were orderly. If
it were orderly, it can be safe. It can be humane. It can be
lawful. But right now, we are kind-of funneling everybody to
that pressure point that is the U.S.-Mexico border in a way
that simply doesn't make sense given the number of reasons
people are on the move and have been over the last 30 years,
really.
Chairman Correa. Thank you very much. I'm out of time. So,
let me now recognize our Ranking Member, Mr. Meijer, for 5
minutes of questions. Welcome, sir.
Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to build on
those remarks by continuing with Mr. Restrepo, a quick
question. How have we seen the shifts over time between
individuals crossing the border with an eye toward employment
and then sending remittances back to a home country versus
full-on relocation?
Mr. Restrepo. So, we have seen a couple of different things
happen over the course of the last couple of decades. No. 1, is
that we have generally seen, until this past year, a decrease
in Mexican migration. Mexican migration had been largely single
adults coming to work seeking employment in the United States.
We have also seen them be replaced by initially single adult
Central Americans on the move for a very similar set of
reasons.
Over the course of the last roughly decade--a little bit
less--you have seen a real increase first in unaccompanied
minors. So, folks that are 17 and younger coming to the United
States and presenting for asylum purposes, and family units.
So, I think that goes to this issue that there are a bunch of--
right now, you are seeing basically all of the above for the
reasons discussed. The storms, COVID, family reunification,
protection needs. So, you have this kind-of diverse group of
folks who are on the move or who have this--who are being
impelled to move for a different set of reasons, but really no
system that brings any order to that, right? That channels it
to places. Quite frankly, having places to channel folks
actually also enhances your enforcement ability, right? Because
if you are enforcing, you want to be sending people somewhere,
rather than just saying you just can't come, right? Because as
we have seen over the course of, again, 30 years, folks are
going to come. The question is how do you most cost-
effectively, most humanly, and most effectively order those
types of movement?
Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Mr. Restrepo. Again, I want to thank
the Chairman for allowing us to also be, you know, drawing the
contrast between not only what may seem remote and that is what
is occurring in Mexico in their northern tribal countries, but
then also how we are experiencing those kind of distant
patterns, those distant trends, those distant issues, and how
that is making an impact here at home as well.
So, I want to shift to Sheriff Hinkley. Sheriff, in your
testimony, you outlined a few challenges that you have been
confronting within Michigan as a result of housing immigrant
children at Starr Commonwealth. So, this administration has
opened several emergency intake sites similar to Starr
Commonwealth to help HHS deal with the influx of unaccompanied
children coming to the Southern Border this year.
Could you please talk a little more about these challenges
and how local law enforcement, including your sheriff's
department, has had to adapt in order to meet them?
Mr. Hinkley. Absolutely. So, this, I mean, this is an
interesting situation when we have children in our jurisdiction
that our State law has already provided significant protection
for children in our communities. So, when the children are in
our jurisdiction and the Federal authorities--and let me start
this off by saying this has been a fantastic relationship. We
have had great communication. But this is surrounding funding.
When it comes back to--we were trying to make sure that all of
our State law obligations were met with the children that are
on the campus there, and so, when there is a crisis or an
emergency, local law enforcement has to be involved.
I would like to say initially they had asked for a number
of--our community services officers to be on the campus to be
plugged in. Then we eventually found out that there was
absolutely no funding to make that happen. Our intent was to
make sure that all of the State law guidelines were being met
with the children so, we both had the same--everyone had the
same goal here for success. We just didn't have the funding to
make that happen. There were so many other things, including
law enforcement and mental health and our sexual assault
services investigations in the county that is going to be
affected by this impact and there is just no funding to offset
it.
Mr. Meijer. Then, Sheriff, could you speak to just your
impressions, you know, are you witnessing--I know you have
spoken positively at least of kind-of the interactions of
communication. Were you under the impression that these were
kind-of well-developed plans or something that was put together
a little bit more in haste?
Mr. Hinkley. Yes, absolutely. It was very, very unexpected
and if we had to do this over again, I would have rather had
this conversation a month out and we were able to establish
those plans and how the Federal laws interact with State laws
so everything was taken care of. It just--it just didn't
happen. It was very unexpected and when you are in the middle
of the budget cycle for your own department, and you are asked
to do more services and you just don't have the funding to do
that, it was--it is a crisis here at our agency, also, trying
to make sure that these are all met.
Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Sheriff, and thank you, Mr.
Chairman. I look forward to continuing working on this and I
yield back.
Chairman Correa. Thank you, Mr. Meijer. Now, I recognize
Ms. Titus for 5 minutes of questions.
Ms. Titus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
having this hearing. I have a number of people from this area.
In my district, many of them are TPS holders, especially from
El Salvador and Honduras. I want to ask about the impacts of
not keeping that TPS protection.
But first, let me go to the problem of climate change. It
has been mentioned by almost all the speakers and we have
certainly seen how it exacerbates the problems of poverty in
this Northern Triangle. I think the statistics from the U.N.
World Food Program shows that food insecurity just in 2020
increased from 1.6 to almost double to 3.0 million people. So,
I wonder if Ms. O'Neil would just describe briefly what the
immediate need for food is and what we can do to set up
sustainable agriculture or infrastructure to not just give you
a fish but teach you how to fish. Can we ensure that with the
corruption in government that this will get to the people who
need it?
Ms. O'Neil. Great, thank you, Congresswoman. Yes, climate
change has hit this part of the world incredibly hard and many
of these countries have parts of their countries where there
has been drought for 6, 7, or more years. So, it has been
incredibly difficult and leaving millions food insecure with
all kinds of deleterious effects of the like.
What can we do? I mean, especially given the hurricanes,
given COVID, given, you know, many of these economies have shut
down. There is a direct need for food that the United States
can fill in weeks, months, today. I think that is important.
So, there is the short-term acute response that I think the
United States should fill.
There is a longer-term response, and I started mentioning
that. But I do think there is--these--for farmers to stay on
their land, and keep their land, and not lose their land when
their crops fail, they need to change the kinds of things they
grow. They need to grow them in different ways and they need to
find new markets and, hopefully, cut out middlemen and others
so they can earn more for each type of produce that they grow
or each crop that they had.
So, that can involve things like setting up irrigation and
drainage, managing water systems differently, as Ariel had
mentioned. It can mean helping farmers switch to other crops
that they are not familiar with. So, some technical training
and the like to get to that point.
Then it can be, you know, how can you help some of these
communities come together and do, you know, fair trade coffee
where they get paid much more per pound than they would today
for other kinds. So, there is a lot of things there that is the
teaching to fish. But it is really, these are farmers. They
know how to farm. But helping them get to a different set of
markets and a different set of crops that will give them much
more to support their families with. Making sure that they get
to keep their land because sometimes what happens when your
crop fails, you lose your land because of your debts. Then you
are, you know, you are out of that whole game. You are looking
for somewhere to go, which could be a city in Central America
or it could be the United States.
Ms. Titus. Thank you very much. Mr. Restrepo, you mentioned
that ending DACA and TPS would have put additional strains on
existing governments. I wonder if you and Mr. Ruiz Soto would
comment on that. The House has passed the Promise Act and
extended provisions for TPS holders. Many have been here for
generations.
Mr. Restrepo. Correct.
Ms. Titus. That is a burden that just sending them back or
not giving them that security puts on home governments, which
adds to that push factor for other immigration. No longer would
they have the remittances that are occurring now. But also,
they would have more people to serve and fewer resources.
Mr. Restrepo. That is precisely right, Congresswoman. There
is several kinds of layers of effect, if you will, in terms of
what--a termination of TPS. For these communities, who as you
rightly point out, have now been in the United States for
decades, who are very much a part of our societies and part of
our communities. So, you disrupt that remittance flow, you
would bring in--it is actually you have an interesting labor
market effect also in the countries themselves in that you
would be sending back more skilled workers. Folks who have
acquired skills here in the United States who would displace
lessor-skilled workers in these countries, making them more
prone to migrate.
So, it is kind-of you have a knock-on--kind-of a bunch of
negative knock-on effects. You would cut a remittance flow that
has allowed people to stay in place. You would be displacing a
particular kind of migration-vulnerable segment of the
population with these kind of displaced workers back into these
countries. So, it would be a lose-lose-lose. We would lose here
in the United States where these folks are already members of
our community. We would disrupt part of the economies in these
countries that allows people to stay and live out their dreams
in their home communities in the region. You would displace a
segment of a work force that is already under enormous stress
and make them more likely to migrate. So, the termination of
temporary protective status, again, is kind-of a lose-lose-lose
proposition.
Ms. Titus. Thank you. That was great. That is an argument
we need to make more effectively.
Chairman Correa. Thank you, Ms. Titus. Now, I would like to
recognize Mr. Bishop from North Carolina for 5 minutes of
questions. Welcome, sir.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One thing Mr.
Restrepo, I thought I heard your testimony. You said, I think,
that the powers that be in Northern Triangle countries treat
people as export commodities. Is that what I understood?
Mr. Restrepo. That is correct, Congressman.
Mr. Bishop. If that is the case, isn't it important that
American policies be decidedly organized to deter, you know,
not to enable that practice?
Mr. Restrepo. I think U.S. policy--and that was exactly my
point--should be to disrupt that practice. What do I mean by
that? The U.S. policy should be on behalf of free market
competition in these economies. These economies serve a very
small number of people. There is an enormous amount of economic
concentration. Those folks just build higher walls and hire
more private security to protect them from their own
population. There is more private security in Guatemala today
than there is public security. That should tell us a lot about
that Guatemala's not really working as a society. That those
folks are the problem. So, we should be--United States should
be actively promoting market economics in these countries to
give folks--Shannon was talking about it earlier--to give these
farmers an opportunity to get a fair price for their goods. The
farmer who gets a fair price is much likelier to stay in their
country than a farmer who is working at barely subsistence
levels for kind of big coffee in this case. Those folks can
just kind-of be moved out of the country, less social cost, and
they send back remittances.
Mr. Bishop. I get the picture. Let me follow up. So, isn't
it--doesn't it seem sort of implausible--I know you were
talking about--or somebody was making reference to a $4 billion
spending plan the President is talking about. Doesn't it seem
somewhat implausible that these societies and the way they have
been set up, that you have this exploitation that you describe,
doesn't it seem implausible that the United States about
sending in more money to these--I understand you don't want to
send them into the hands of the governments that you regard as
corrupt. That is not going to give rise to a system that
suddenly becomes successful, is it?
Mr. Restrepo. It certainly can. It certainly can
contribute. Again, it is about empowering folks. It is not that
the United States is going to come in and do this. There are
plenty of folks in civil society, in the private sector, in
these Central American countries who want a better system. Who
are, kind-of demanding a better system, but, again, the system
is rigged against them. I think if the United States comes in
effectively be that $4 billion or obviously, the Congress gets
to decide that number, but make sure you target it in the right
way to disrupt these--again it is a small number of folks who
are--who have rigged this system. If the United States comes in
on behalf of everyone else in Central America, I think
absolutely the United States can make a positive difference and
that can affect migration positively both for the region and
for ourselves.
Mr. Bishop. So, it just seems to me more plausible that
governments are formed, societies that become successful, do so
by their own internal decisions. I am skeptical that you are
going to get foreign countries to solve these problems for
these countries.
But let me talk about what is happening in the United
States for a moment and let me ask Sheriff Hinkley. The impacts
you were describing were on a private campus. Are these
unaccompanied minors who are being cared for? Is that who you
are referring to, the hundred that arrived in Michigan?
Mr. Hinkley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Bishop. I understand also you have family units with
small children coming in and they are being distributed
throughout the United States and then some are waiting. Are you
aware of personally, or have you heard about any of that in
your community?
Mr. Hinkley. I have not. Only children, sir.
Mr. Bishop. You were illustrating one point, one impact,
local police resources and you mentioned mental health
services. I assume there are going to be--at some point these
children are going to move off this private campus, right?
Mr. Hinkley. That is my understanding that they are going
to be moved to private families somewhere in the United States.
Mr. Bishop. Presumably, they will need to be educated. They
will need health care. Do you have any information about the
capacity of the recipient families or recipient persons to meet
all of their own economic needs as well as for these
unaccompanied minors?
Mr. Hinkley. None. No, sir.
Mr. Bishop. You are describing that their resources are
constrained in the United States for public services of all
these kinds, wouldn't you say?
Mr. Hinkley. Yes, sir, absolutely.
Mr. Bishop. So, if we are sending $4 billion to try to
change what hasn't been done by these nations abroad, do you
believe this $4 billion could be useful in the United States to
try to ameliorate the problems here?
Mr. Hinkley. I certainly do, sir.
Mr. Bishop. My time has expired. Thank you.
Chairman Correa. Thank you, Mr. Bishop. Now, I would like
to recognize Mr. Torres of New York for 5 minutes of questions.
Welcome, sir.
Mr. Torres. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, it is important
to note that migration is an episodic event. It is not unique
to the Biden administration. There had been waves of migration
in 2014 during the Obama administration, 2019 during the Trump
administration, and now, in 2021. So, President Biden is hardly
the only President to manage a wave of migration. He is the
only President, however, to do so during an infectious disease
outbreak, which has put unprecedented constraints on the
shelter capacity of the Federal Government, particularly,
Health and Human Services. So, I would hope instead of
demagoguing the issue of immigration and scapegoating the
President, as too many Republicans have done, we ought to
commit ourselves to seriously grappling with the root causes of
episodic migration.
We should ask ourselves why are these migrants fleeing
their home country? Why are they taking the treacherous journey
from their home country to the U.S.-Mexico border? My first
question is for the Center for American Progress. Is it fair to
say that migrants flee their home country because of
instability at home?
Mr. Restrepo. Absolutely, among other reasons, absolutely.
Mr. Torres. What did the Trump administration do to address
the instability driving the migration?
Mr. Restrepo. Very little. One might argue they took steps
that undermined stability in those countries. For example,
turning a blind eye to Juan Orlando Hernandez in Honduras,
stealing the Presidential election several years ago led to an
immediate rise in migration thereafter. And left Honduras in
the hands of somebody who has now been named and identified as
an unindicted co-conspirator in successful drug prosecutions in
the United States Federal District Court against his brother
and other Honduran kingpins.
Mr. Torres. By contrast, what does the Biden administration
profess to do to address the instability driving immigration?
Mr. Restrepo. A number of things. To address the acute
causes and more humanitarian assistance right now to deal with
food insecurity and to help put people back to work rebuilding
their community. Then going after corruption. So, anti-
corruption issues, efforts, transparency efforts, addressing
gender-based violence, addressing the insecurities that affect
too many people in these countries, in many of the ways that
myself and my colleagues here on the panel have been talking
about.
Mr. Torres. I have heard several Republicans raise
questions about the efficacy of humanitarian assistance, but
humanitarian assistance has a successful track record in
history. I mean, certainly, the Marshall Plan was a success. Is
that a fair characterization?
Mr. Restrepo. Absolutely.
Mr. Torres. Is it fair to say that migrants who are risking
their lives on the treacherous journey are doing so because of
their inability to apply for asylum from within their home
countries?
Mr. Restrepo. Certainly, there aren't lines to get in.
There aren't mechanisms for protection close enough to home or
for the other reasons the people are on the move.
Mr. Torres. Right, so, you have the Central American Minors
Program. That program was suspended by the Trump
administration, correct?
Mr. Restrepo. Correct. I think my co-panelist, Ariel is
more expert in the efforts to get it back up and running.
Mr. Torres. Is it--then I will address the question to your
co-panelist. Is it fair to say that the Trump administration's
suspension of the Central American Minors Program is one
example of how the Trump administration made the situation at
the border worse for the Biden administration?
Mr. Ruiz Soto. Well, it certainly really did cause a
disruption for what we could do. But the program itself also
from the beginning had a small number of recipients. So, in the
future, I think one of the things that we have been looking at
here is to try to increase how it is implemented so that it is
able to reach a higher population.
Mr. Torres. How do we bolster the implementation of the
program, the participation in the program?
Mr. Ruiz Soto. Just very briefly, 2 quick things that can
be done; No. 1 is how it is defined of who is able to petition
for children. Right now, at least in the past iteration of it,
it was focusing on people who could prove they were with lawful
presence in the United States. That included TPS holders. But
we do know that there is a significant number of other families
that wouldn't be able to petition for their children. No. 2, it
is because the CAM allocations are actually directed to the
refugee resettlement numbers and so, therefore, that also
potentially should be increased to actually increase the
capacity of people that are coming through.
Mr. Torres. Do you think the American people would want
their country to close the borders to unaccompanied minors? Do
you think most Americans would wish that outcome on other
people's children?
Mr. Ruiz Soto. I don't think so. I think there is public
opinion that has said that there should be a better way to
provide humanitarian processing. It is really trying to see, as
I think Dan mentioned earlier, how can we make the process
better so that people can at the border, but also in their
countries, have better access to protection assistance.
Mr. Torres. Most of the migrants who are coming here have
family here in the United States, correct?
Mr. Ruiz Soto. There is a large segment of them that do,
especially from El Salvador and from Guatemala. Honduras is
slightly a different case, but certainly from El Salvador.
Mr. Torres. So, we should strive toward humane
reunification between these migrants and their families here.
Mr. Ruiz Soto. That is one example and one key, I guess,
area that we have been looking at at MPI and we want to
continue to do that further. So, yes, it definitely should be
one of the keys of the components in relation to the regional
immigration strategy that I outlined earlier.
Mr. Torres. I cannot see the clock, but I am sure my time
has expired. So, thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Correa. Thank you, Mr. Torres. Now, I would like
to call on Ms. Harshbarger for 5 minutes of questions. Welcome,
ma'am.
Ms. Harshbarger Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Meijer. You know, we all have a heart for these children. I
mean, nobody wants anybody to go hungry and nobody wants
anybody to suffer persecution. But we are a country of laws. As
Representative Meijer said, we were at the border. We saw how
many unaccompanied minors are there. Those children don't want
to be there.
It is like me sending my son, sending my grandchildren
across the border by themselves. It is terrible. There are so
many factors that brought them here, but what about those
people trying to get in here legally? There are push and pull
factors for them as well.
I guess, I have some questions. You know, the Biden
administration canceled the Asylum Cooperative Agreements with
Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. This is open to anyone
who wants to answer. Were the agreements effective in helping
these countries build up their asylum and refugee programs?
Mr. Restrepo. I will take a shot at that Congresswoman.
They were not effective. So, they were neither effective in
kind-of building out refugee and asylum programs in these
countries, which is actually a very important element of
creating a migration system that meets the needs of folks as
close to home as possible. So, the idea of doing that is an
important one.
The ACAs were not achieving that. Nor were they
particularly effective for the purpose that they were laid out.
It was to redirect migrants. Only a couple hundred people were
ever moved or repatriated under the ACAs. So, they weren't
effective in creating more asylum and refugee capacity in the
region. Nor were they particularly effective for the use, the
limited use that the Trump administration put it to, of
redirecting people who were arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Mr. Ruiz Soto. If I could--could I just a quick comment?
Ms. Harshbarger Go ahead.
Mr. Ruiz Soto. It is just to point out that, again, one of
the key components of the ACA is that I do think it should be
followed up and it is part of our regional immigration system
plan that I suggested is to try to increase the capacity of
specific countries. But I think it does require a specific
focus on which capacities are easiest to upgrade, for example.
We know very little about Honduras and El Salvador. Guatemala
seemed to be having a particular opportunity here. I think with
significant efforts and with, again, the buy-in from the
political governments there, we could begin to think of other
ways that we can implement protection mechanisms. Because I
think as others have mentioned in this panel, it is important
for people to have access to protection closer to home in a way
that makes it easier for them to be safe.
Ms. Harshbarger OK. Ms. O'Neil, do you know how much aid
goes to different efforts like the agricultural program's
approach to, I guess, reduce domestic violence or curb
corruption and Government-directed trafficking?
Ms. O'Neil. Well, the different programs have changed over
time. So, as we think about this particular time, and most of
them, many of them were frozen or paused in the last couple of
years. So, there has been very little that has gone to those
programs.
But when you look back at the Alliance for Prosperity, it
was roughly $750 million from, I guess, 2016 to 2018. So, there
were many different areas, but those were some of the areas
that received, you know, probably in tens of millions of
dollars depending on which ones. You know, what we do know from
some of the evaluations that are out there and as my colleague,
Ariel, was saying, we need to make sure evaluations are put
into these programs so we see what works. What we do know is
often place-based, where you focus on one particular place and
you try to deal with some of the many causes that lead to an
unstable situation that has people leave, that is important.
So, some of this layering on. It is also important to focus on
places where you do see high migration, right? Those are the
places that need more support.
Ms. Harshbarger Well, we absolutely need measures in place
for that. I do have one last question for Mr. Hinkley. Were you
told that those unaccompanied minors were coming to your area
before they got there?
Mr. Hinkley. No, ma'am.
Ms. Harshbarger You weren't.
Mr. Hinkley. No, ma'am.
Ms. Harshbarger You had no way--OK, no way of knowing or--
and I have heard this over and over at different places that
they received these children, didn't know they were going to
come. We have colleagues in Texas that experienced the same
thing. You know, just like the Border Patrol, 50 percent of
their operating budget is being used to help with snacks, help
with doctors, help with formula. We need to talk together in a
bipartisan way and come up with a solution. That is just the
bottom line. I yield back, sir.
Chairman Correa. Thank you, Ms. Harshbarger. Any other
Members that we haven't called on that I am not seeing here?
That being the case, what I would like to do, Mr. Meijer, is go
to a second round of questions, if I may. I would like to go
back to all questions for everybody.
I understand President Biden has restarted the Central
American Minors Program that allows children to apply for
asylum in their home country. This is important because all of
us have seen those children at the border. Sheriff Hinkley, you
dealt with children, unaccompanied minors. There has got to be
a better way to do this. I think the way to do it is to start
by being able to keep those children at home, safe. Be able to
apply for asylum at home. Those young ladies that I saw that
were sexually attacked on their trip. The 3- and 5-year-old
girls that were thrown over the border wall inhumanely looking
for certain death.
This is just not a good way to do business. Question to all
of you. How do we get this program up and running as quickly as
possible and how do we keep those kids safe in their home
country? Ms. O'Neil.
Ms. O'Neil. I mean, a lot of the things that we have been
addressing here. Trying to address the acute and the long-term
factors in the long run will make those communities safer so
fewer of these kids need to apply for asylum. So, that is one
side, right?
The other side is can we make it possible? I mean, they are
applying for asylum. They are leaving their communities because
they are dangerous. So, yes, we can set up places in those
countries in other neighborhoods or in other places within a
particular country. We can set up asylum places where they can
go in a neighboring country. But we can also, and we need to
here in the United States, fix our own asylum system so that
when they do come to the border, they are not being thrown over
the border because the line is a million people long, but
because there is actually an efficient way at our border for
them to come and see a judge to have their case adjudicated and
to go through a process.
So, that will take, you know, the resources of the United
States. But it is our asylum system that----
Chairman Correa. Thank you, Ms. O'Neil. I am running out of
time here. So, Sheriff Hinkley, I would like to ask you. Your
concern, and it is a valid one, you didn't get a heads-up. You
just got somebody saying we got a bunch of children we want you
to take care of. That is just not a good way to run an
operation. There has got to be a better way of coordinating.
What do you recommend we do next time? What do we tell the
Federal Government in terms of working with our local people as
well? I am very close to my local folks here, my local sheriff,
local police departments. You all want a heads-up. What do we
need to do?
Mr. Hinkley. Absolutely. We need--this needs to be
preplanned. We need to sit down and we need to assess every
community service that will be affected. We need to decide how
those affected will be funded. We need to sit down and we need
to be able to discuss how the Federal law and the State law
interact. They both have the same intent. But we have to be
able when this happens, we have to be able to make sure that we
serve both State and Federal laws. It just, you know, it just
brings chaos and uncertainty when there isn't precommunication
when these things are happening. Primarily, funding for local
services that are affected.
Chairman Correa. No unfunded mandates is what you are
saying. Mr. Restrepo, how do we kickstart this Central American
Minors Program at home?
Mr. Restrepo. The Central Minors Program is building out
the capacity in the ways Ariel talked about earlier in terms--
and who is eligible to make the claims here from the United
States. That is a big piece of the puzzle. In terms of which
families do we want to allow reunification to take place in.
Because a lot of these kids are leaving absolutely desperate
straits, but they are also in search of a parent who is already
in the United States. So, we need to factor that into how this
gets built out.
Chairman Correa. So, you----
Mr. Restrepo. Yes.
Chairman Correa. Mr. Restrepo, you bring up an important
point. Which, Sheriff Hinkley, when I was at the border, those
kids I talked to them in their language and they said we are
here to meet up with somebody. They all had somebody. The fact
that maybe that information was not communicated to you, I
think, is just a dereliction of duty. We have to make sure all
this information is funneled to you so you know what the heck
you are dealing with and you can be part of the solution, as
opposed to trying to figure how to put out a challenge, you can
help. So, you know, let us figure out how to help you, Sheriff,
at the local level.
Ariel, in the last 20 seconds, how do we kickstart this
minors program?
Mr. Ruiz Soto. So, it starts with trying to implement,
again, the broad outlines in the processing from the countries.
I think we have learned some really good opportunities in El
Salvador working with, for example, the embassy there to try to
make sure there is a better coordination of it within the
embassy as well.
Now, a lot of the things that really delayed the program
the last time that it was in effect, was that there is a long
delay between processing times and for the people to be able to
come here. So, if there was something that we could to
expediate the process, I think that could be beneficial for the
children, but also for the parents in the process sending that
clear messaging as well, is something that is important.
Chairman Correa. A message that the program actually works
and you can stay home and do it from there.
Mr. Ruiz Soto. That is correct.
Chairman Correa. Thank you very much. Ranking Member
Meijer, you are up for 5 minutes, sir.
Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that we
are doing another round of questioning because, again, I think
it is important that we continue to dive in. I want to switch
slightly and just ask, well, I guess from a baseline, you know,
we talk and divide things into the push factors and the pull
factors. You know, we should hope that our country is always
one that folks want to come to or we will have much bigger
problems if that is ever not the case.
At the same time, you know, we have seen a degradation and
a lack of functioning in our legal immigration system. We have
seen the polarization of many areas that used to be quite
bipartisan, or there was a consensus around. I think of border
security a decade ago being a pretty bipartisan agreement. Then
some of that has broken down, unfortunately.
So, I want to ask our panelists a little bit about the
impact of that pull factor with the impact of rhetoric and of
expectation. You know, how can elected officials in this
country be most clear not going far to demonization, but also
offering a level set of expectations when communicating our
kind of border situation and our immigration policies and
conversely, you know, how is that being--what is the best way
to make sure that that is received accurately so we are not
creating unfounded hope or expectations within Northern
Triangle countries? I am not sure if Mr. Soto or Ms. O'Neil or
Mr. Restrepo, please.
Mr. Restrepo. I will take a shot, at least an initial shot.
So, I think a couple of things are important to keep in mind
here, Congressman. One, is that as hard as it is to believe it
is not always about us, in terms of what we are saying here and
how it is being heard in the region. A lot of this movement is
because of on the ground facts of life in the region that are
independent of U.S. policy, right? You can see that the example
of just look at the last 3 kind-of significant increases in
migration. They have occurred with wildly different postures by
the United States.
The highest month on record at the moment is still May
2019, when we had President Trump's policies firmly in place.
So, it is not as often about U.S. policy, migration policy, as
I think often gets kind-of factored into our own debate.
Mr. Meijer. That is well-understood. That is obviously,----
Mr. Restrepo. Yes, right.
Mr. Meijer [continuing]. You know, there is a push and
pull, you know, we can affect more the pull than the push.
Mr. Restrepo. Yes. The other thing that I think is--that is
important here, is how we communicate and how dis- and
misinformation play a role here. Because a lot of this kind of
organizing in the migratory flow and in the migratory system is
done through social media and is done through, quite frankly,
smugglers who create mis- and disinformation to create kind-of
the impression that things are different than they are at the
U.S.-Mexico border. I think that is very much the case right
now and has been in the last few months. So, this communication
that matters is taking place in channels that I think sometimes
as a Government, we don't really understand as well, or
certainly don't really have the built-in capacity to
communicate through.
The last point, and leave it to my fellow panelists, a lot
of this communication actually doesn't even take place in
Spanish. Which is another one of those things we need to get
into our head. It takes place in indigenous languages. Because
a lot of the folks who are on the move, particularly in a
country like Guatemala that is so fundamentally divided on
racial grounds, on ethic grounds. The most vulnerable
populations are the most marginalized and those are indigenous
communities and they are being communicated to in indigenous
languages and being misinformed in indigenous languages by
folks who are preying on them and preying on their desperate
situation. I think that is something we all need to think more
about how we counteract that kind of information flow.
Mr. Meijer. Thank you. I want to give enough time for Ms.
O'Neil and Mr. Soto, if they want to chip in on that.
Mr. Ruiz Soto. Just a 10-second response here. Messaging
only matters because of policy, of course, it is policy
setting. But also in this case, messaging matters because it
lays out the foundation for the other partners in the region to
actually be able to respond quickly to what we can do.
Essentially, what I am saying here is that by focusing on
what the United States is working on, you can allow and provide
assistance and collaboration with, for example, Mexico and
Guatemala in this case, who then can also be partners in that
same messaging and harmonize those efforts.
Mr. Meijer. Ms. O'Neil.
Ms. O'Neil. The last thing I would say is messaging would
help if we have a message to give them that there is another
alternative besides showing up at the U.S.-Mexico border,
right? Back to Dan's point about there is only one funnel and
you just put everybody there. Whatever their concerns are,
whatever reasons they are coming, if we did have Central
American Minors Programs, if we did have these things, then you
can message about those. And lead people in different
directions that is more effective all around.
Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Correa. Thank you, Mr. Meijer. Now, I would like
to call on Mr. Bishop for 5 minutes of questions, sir.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to--Mr.
Restrepo, I think you just said a minute ago that the peak was
in May 2019. Were you talking about illegal crossings?
Mr. Restrepo. A recent peak, yes, sir.
Mr. Bishop. Well, I don't know if anybody can see this. I
hope this works on it. But this is the chart that, you know,
that CBP has done. Everybody has seen this chart I will bet. It
looks like it is coming up. I don't know if one is working.
Next to it is a line, and my understanding is that the line
this year is a March interceptions or apprehensions of 172,000
was the highest in 15 or 20 years based on this. First of all,
isn't that correct?
[The information follows:]
Mr. Restrepo. In terms of the number of apprehensions,
absolutely. But one of the things that is happening right now
that was not happening in May 2019, is you have very high
recidivism rates. Where you have, because of Title 42
expulsion, that 170-some-odd-thousand includes many of the same
people on multiple occasions in a way that was not true in May
2019. So, you probably had more unique individuals in May 2019,
than you do--than you did last month.
Mr. Bishop. OK. So, I hear your point on that. But also, in
May 2019, what is interesting is that thing looks like a
mountain. It goes to the top and then it goes to the bottom. I
understand the CNN data they are projecting--we will see the
data in a day or 2, but April is going to be little higher,
yet. So, it may be 174,000 they were projecting. So, it is
going to plateau at that 20-year unpreceded peak level. I don't
know where it goes from there, but in terms of what the
response has been from the administration, the response is
oriented, it seems to me, toward increasing throughput. So,
what they tout as a success is the reduction in the amount of
time unaccompanied minors were spending in the custody of
Border Patrol. The reason for that is they say that is
advantage just because they are getting the hands of ORR,
Office of Refugee Resettlement. They are going to go--they
described to us--plans to go from 16,000 beds on the border for
unaccompanied minors to 60. They are going to turn those beds
over every 24 days or so and send all those people into the
United States. Is that a recipe for success?
Mr. Restrepo. It is a recipe with complying with U.S. law,
Congressman, which, I think, is successful, right? If you are
effectively----
Mr. Bishop. I am not----
Mr. Restrepo. If you are effectively compliant with----
Mr. Bishop [continuing]. Asking so much what the law is, I
am asking--you are talking about what we should be seeking to
do. It seems to me that, that is flirting with disaster. If the
policy response from the Federal--from the administration is to
just bring the people in illegally faster, and distribute them
through the United States, that can't possible solve the
problem, can it?
Mr. Restrepo. Sir, but you just said bring the people in
illegally. But, again, this is in compliance with the United
States law. And I think----
Mr. Bishop. OK,----
Mr. Restrepo [continuing]. The United States meeting its
legal obligations, I think is good Government.
Mr. Bishop. OK. So, you think that's good Government? That
continuing that pattern and responding to it with that policy
approach is good Government?
Mr. Restrepo. I think complying with U.S. law is good
Government. I think doing all of the things we have been
talking about to bring these numbers down in a sustainable way
is also good Government.
Mr. Bishop. You said that most of these unaccompanied
minors are coming in to join somebody in the United States. I
don't know if you said if it was a parent. I would assume that
given the way they are coming in, presumably those parents or
those families they are going to join must not be very well off
or they would be helping them come in some other way, wouldn't
you think?
Mr. Restrepo. There is no other way, sir. That is part of
the problem. That is part of what we are talking about. There
is not a family reunification mechanism under law today for
these families to utilize.
Mr. Bishop. But it is true that it is an arduous and unsafe
and usually cartel-dominated process by which they are coming
in, right?
Mr. Restrepo. Absolutely. Absolutely. I am not arguing that
is a good way for people to come.
Mr. Bishop. If not my premise, would you agree with the
conclusion that for the most part, the folks they are coming to
join are not economically well-off?
Mr. Restrepo. The people that are coming to join don't have
a legal mechanism for them to come join. I don't think we can--
--
Mr. Bishop. That is not what I meant.
Mr. Restrepo. I understand, but I don't think you can pass
judgment--I don't think you can generalize across the board
about the economic conditions of the folks they are coming to
meet.
Mr. Bishop. So, we don't know whether or not those people
they are coming to meet are capable of providing for their
needs.
Mr. Restrepo. As a general matter, I don't think we can
answer that question.
Mr. Bishop. You would agree with me that all needs that the
folks have for Government services in the United States are not
completely met, wouldn't you? Resources are constrained.
Mr. Restrepo. Oh, obviously, resources are constrained,
yes, sir.
Mr. Bishop. So, to the extent we are intensifying demands
on those resources, we are worsening that strain.
Mr. Restrepo. While you are also expanding the tax base.
Most of these folks end up paying taxes and don't get the
Government benefits that these taxes pay. So, the economic
argument here probably cuts in a different direction than the
one you are assuming.
Mr. Bishop. OK. Fair enough. I yield back. My time has
expired.
Chairman Correa. Thank you, Mr. Bishop. Now, I will call on
Ms. Harshbarger for another 5 minutes of questions, ma'am.
Ms. Harshbarger Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the ways
the Biden administration plans to address the root causes of
migration is by spending another $4 billion in the region. I
guess I could ask this to Mr. Ruiz Soto. Will sending these
large amounts of aid money to the Northern Triangle countries
do anything in that direction or improve the economic
conditions there?
Mr. Ruiz Soto. I'm sorry, Congresswoman, I heard most of
what you said, but it was a little bit choppy. But I think your
question was how effective would the $4 billion be to meet the
conditions of the center. So, one of the key things that we
have looked at and back to your question I think you asked in
the last round is about how much actually--how much of the
funding actually goes toward development assistance? I pulled
it up here and it is between fiscal year 2016 to 2019, about 40
percent of the funding from the United States went to
development assistance. The other pieces of it were to
narcotics and security, actually, and a little bit of economic
support.
But what I was trying to get at with my testimony is that
we need to rethink how we provide U.S. assistance so that we
can try to target those problems the most effectively. Of
course, in the short run, as I mentioned, it is going to take
time and it is going to take consistency across several years
for these type of programs to actually have a meaningful effect
for the majority of population. But that should not prevent us
from focusing on the shorter-term goals for meeting the more
vulnerable populations there as well.
So, my answer to your question is that it will take several
years, if not decades, to try to change the conditions on the
ground, even with $4 billion right away.
Ms. Harshbarger OK. Mr. Hinkley, I will tell you what I
have heard in my district. That is some of these unaccompanied
minors are being placed here and they can't speak English. They
can't speak Spanish. They can't read Spanish, and they are put
into the school systems for the teachers to take care of. You
know, recently there was a 16-year-old put into the school
system. So, what that does and you could probably address this
at the State level, but it goes toward the graduation rate. You
know, they have to try to incorporate them into the classrooms.
So, that is an added burden on the school system in these small
communities. So, do you see that happening where you are at in
Michigan as well?
Mr. Hinkley. Yes. So, that has yet to be seen. Again,
locally, that question has been asked. Certainly it is--it is
unanswered. So, since we are newly into this, probably less
than 30 days into what is happening here, that is a question
that has been posed. But we are just not certain. We have not
received an answer. But certainly, if that happens, it is
certainly going to affect economically and locally our
communities, correct.
Ms. Harshbarger Yes, and honestly, when the school
superintendent asked how the children got there, they couldn't
answer them. So, that was a problem. We need to--that is a
track-and-trace program that we need in place. Representative
Meijer knows we have asked where are these people going? You
know, where are they going? How many are going there? We
couldn't get an answer.
But I will go back to Mr. Restrepo, you were talking about
social media as one of the ways that, of course, we know this,
social media is one of the ways they pull these people across
the borders. This is one of the pulls if you want to look at it
that way. They promise them so many things, these smugglers. It
is atrocious that we cannot hold these social media companies
accountable. So, give me some ideas. Tell me what we need to do
as Congress to stop and hold these social media people
accountable.
Mr. Restrepo. Congresswoman, telecommunications law is
little outside my expertise. But I think at a more practical
level, I think at the very least, and regardless of what
Congress decides to do in terms of how to govern or not social
media platforms, I think the U.S. Government needs to
communicate much more effectively on those platforms in these
spaces to combat the kinds of lies that are being sold to
desperate people in northern Central America--northern Central
America and southern Mexico. The United States has to be in
this information battlespace, if you will, in a way much more
robustly than the United States has ever been. Quite frankly,
we are not particularly well set up as a Government to
communicate in that way and as nimbly as we need to be able to
combat these lies that these smugglers are selling folks.
Ms. Harshbarger Yes. Well, that is one of things I am
constantly saying. We need to be better messengers of
everything we do, period. Get your point across and make it a
simple addition, not a calculus problem when we are talking to
people, so.
Mr. Restrepo. Yes, ma'am, absolutely.
Ms. Harshbarger I appreciate your answer. I yield back,
sir.
Chairman Correa. Thank you very much. Ms. Harshbarger. Mr.
Bishop, I wanted to ask you if you would like to submit for the
record your chart, the CBP chart. I have not had a chance to
look at it.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to do
that. I understand Mr. Meijer has got it to turn in. Thank you
for the opportunity. I was about to close.
Chairman Correa. Thank you very much. We are at the end of
our second set of questions. I have 1,000 more questions to
ask, but I will ask our Ranking Member if he would like to go
for a third set of questions or we can conclude this hearing
today.
Mr. Meijer. Mr. Chairman, I leave it in your hands, sir.
Chairman Correa. Then what I would like to do is conclude
by saying that this was, in my opinion, a very good start to a
very challenged issue. Mr. Bishop, I listened to your comments.
I think at the end of the day, this is the Western Hemisphere.
This is our backyard. We have got to make sure that we are
taking care of business in our own backyard. This is going to
take a discussion on both sides of the aisle because this has
to go beyond 1 or 2 administrations. We got to keep watching
long-term, asking the tough questions of how things are
governed, the economic systems in Central America. A lot of
tough questions that we as Congresspeople maybe are not used to
dealing with.
But you know what? When things go wrong south of us, we
feel it. We have to begin to take ownership not because we want
to, but because it is in our own strategic interest to take
care of business. So, that being said, Mr. Meijer, would you
like to say a couple of closing statements?
Mr. Meijer. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for holding
this hearing. I strongly agree. You know, what I think we are
dealing with right now and we have been seeking to have this
represented both the immediate consequence that we are seeing
at the border, you know, what we can be doing in the short term
to address and to manage and mitigate. But then also how we can
be implementing long-term solutions so we are not just in the
process of avoiding, getting distracted, and then having this
be a challenge that resurfaces periodically. So, I appreciate
your leadership in bringing together these panelists. I am
grateful for the panelists for sharing their thoughts. To my
colleagues for bringing a variety of concerns reflecting that,
you know, immediate to short-term to long-term continuum that
we must be operating on. I look forward to continuing to make
sure that we are improving not only our border security, but
our immigration process, and making sure that we recognize that
our region is more secure, our neighborhood is more secure when
our partners in the countries who surround us are secure as
well. So, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Correa. Thank you, Mr. Meijer. I want to thank all
the witnesses for their valuable time and testimony today, and
the Members for their questions. I don't know about you, but I
walk away with more questions today than I walked in earlier.
It means we got a lot of work to do.
The Members of the subcommittee may have additional
questions for the witnesses. We ask you to respond to those
questions in writing expeditiously. Without objection, the
committee record will be kept open for 10 days. Hearing no
further business, the subcommittee stands adjourned. Thank you
very much.
[Whereupon, at 3:36 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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