Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday rolled out a five-pillar strategy to address what she described as the root causes of migration.
The story: The White House unveiled Harris’ plan, or the Root Causes Strategy, on Thursday in a fact sheet and a cover letter from Harris.
“In Central America, the root causes of migration run deep — and migration from the region has a direct impact on the United States,” Harris wrote in a cover letter. “For that reason, our nation must consistently engage with the region to address the hardships that cause people to leave Central America and come to our border.”
“Ultimately, our Administration will consistently engage in the region to address the root causes of migration… It will not be easy, and progress will not be instantaneous, but we are committed to getting it right,” she explained.
The White House said that the strategy aims to “establish a fair, orderly, and humane immigration system.”
In detail: Harris’s strategy to curb the border crisis is divided into five parts. However, the plan comes with no specific policy proposals or targets and has no timeline.
Part one involves “addressing economic insecurity and inequality” in Central America. Part two focuses on “combating corruption, strengthening democratic governance, and advancing the rule of law” in the region, and part three on “promoting respect for human rights, labor rights, and free press.”
Part four deals with “countering and preventing violence, extortion, and other crimes perpetrated by criminal gangs, trafficking networks, and other organized criminal organizations” and part five addresses “combating sexual, gender-based, and domestic violence.”
Worth noting: Data from the Department of Homeland Security shows that around 50,000 illegal immigrants who arrived in the U.S. between mid-March and mid-July were released without court dates, according to Axios.
Only 13% of those migrants had checked in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Meanwhile, migrants crossings at the southern border have reached a 10-year high. Border Patrol officials encountered over 188,000 migrants last month.
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