Vice President Kamala Harris and President Biden, this Wednesday at the White House. SHAWN THEW / POOL / EFE
President Joe Biden has appointed Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday to manage the migratory flow on the southern border of the United States, which has skyrocketed since the Democratic duo arrived at the White House.
"When he speaks, he speaks for me," said the president.
As part of his new responsibility, the first he assumes alone, Harris will work with Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries (El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala).
"There is no doubt that this is a challenging situation," said the government's number two, who fears that her legislative agenda will be eclipsed by the humanitarian and political crisis that is being experienced on the border.
"This new increase that we are dealing with now began in the last administration, but it is our responsibility" to deal with it, Biden told reporters before leading a meeting with the vice president at the White House, with the secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, and other immigration advisers to discuss the increase in young migrants arriving at the border in recent weeks.
The number of migrants who have tried to cross the border between Mexico and the United States has been increasing since April 2020. Last month there were 100,441 people without documents, the highest number in the last two years.
In February, arrests grew 28% from the previous month, and in March the figure will be even higher with about 4,000 arrests a day, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
The number of migrant children in US custody at the border tripled to 3,250 in the last week of February and the first of March, according to federal documents consulted by
The New York Times
.
Biden has given the vice president a high responsibility after facing harsh criticism from Republicans for the wave of Central Americans trying to reach the country, attracted by a kind of so-called effect of the new Administration.
From the White House they have repeated the message to migrants not to "come" to the US.
Harris's appointment is the government's latest move to deal with the crisis at the border, though they have declined to call it such.
The US president sent government representatives to Mexico and Guatemala this week to study ways to slow the pace at which people arrive at the southern border.
The vice president will also work for this task and will establish a strategic partnership with Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
"I can't think of anyone who is better qualified to do this," said Biden, who highlighted Harris' work as California attorney general.
Harris's new responsibilities echo those developed by Biden in 2014 and 2015 in the Barack Obama administration, when he led diplomatic efforts in the Northern Triangle as a wave of unaccompanied minors arrived at the US border from those territories.
Arrests for trying to cross the border illegally already reached the highest figures in a decade during the final months of Donald Trump's presidency.
“The previous Administration completely dismantled the asylum system.
The system was destroyed, the facilities were closed and children were cruelly expelled at the hands of human traffickers.
We have had to rebuild the entire system, ”Mayorkas explained in a statement last week, to justify why they require months to reestablish an immigration system.
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