President Joe Biden gives a press conference at the White House on April 7.KEVIN LAMARQUE / Reuters
Joe Biden is having his first crisis.
And it is in Spanish.
It is related to Latin America.
With that dimension of Latin America that, like no other, integrates the domestic agenda of North Americans.
Migrations.
Roberta Jacobson, the coordinator in the National Security Council of the link with the so-called Northern Triangle, which is made up of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, leaves the Government.
It does so in a turbulent context.
The entry of immigrants from the border with Mexico reached a record.
And the way the Administration has dealt with that problem led to the first dissent among Democrats.
It is understood that the White House wanted to minimize the impact of Jacobson's departure, saying that it was scheduled for 100 days after Biden's arrival in power.
Jacobson has had a great diplomatic career.
With Barack Obama, he was in charge of the Undersecretariat for Latin American Affairs of the State Department.
She was an ambassador to Mexico.
And he was in charge of nothing less than the process of reestablishing relations with Cuba.
Once the current president won the elections, she was in charge of organizing the Latin American area of the new Administration.
He is credited with promoting Julie Chung to the current position of undersecretary for Latin America, under Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Jacobson has for years exercised personal leadership over his colleagues specialized in Latin American affairs.
Migration statistics predict that by September one million single adults, 820,000 families, and more than 200,000 unaccompanied minors will have arrived in the United States.
These children embody the main drama.
In March, more than 18,000 crossed the border.
That figure is almost double that of the previous month, when 9,400 minors were detained by the authorities.
One of the measures derived from this wave was the opening of another refugee center to house 500 people in Carrizo Springs, a town located 180 kilometers from San Antonio, Texas.
The installation of this shelter triggered several negative reactions.
Especially one.
Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most acidic prosecutors in Donald Trump's immigration management, tweeted: "This is not right, it has never been right, it will never be right, no matter the Administration or the party." .
It is a mystery if Ocasio-Cortez expressed only herself.
Or if he was giving voice to other leaders of his party emblazoned with the idea of a change in border policy.
The question becomes more sensitive in the case of the vice president, Kamala Harris, to whom Biden two weeks ago entrusted the migration strategy on the southern border.
Harris immediately began conversations with Mexico.
Last Wednesday he had a talk with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whom Biden had accused of refusing the return of illegal immigrants.
Jacobson did not participate.
That is why it is suspected that his departure was prompted by the vice president.
Joe Biden entrusts Kamala Harris with the management of the migration crisis on the border with Mexico
Harris is at a crossroads.
Biden exposed her to one of the most delicate challenges of his tenure, one that is subject to the strictest surveillance of the Democratic left.
A key issue, moreover, for the electoral dispute.
Republicans ask the new government to put order in a matter that is decisive for the gulf that separates them from the Democrats.
The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, a Republican, wrote a letter to Harris demanding that he resolve the humanitarian crisis that broke out on the border with Mexico, where mafias that commit all kinds of outrages operate.
In turn, migrants turn to the vice president for a solution.
Last Friday, 50 families settled in front of their house with signs that read "Kamala, listen, we are in the fight."
The migratory flow is stimulated by various vectors.
One of them is the retraction of the economy.
According to data from the International Monetary Fund, the Mexican fell 8.5% in 2020 and this year it will only recover five points.
Additionally, Guatemala and Honduras were devastated by hurricanes last November.
It is estimated that 50% of Hondurans were affected.
The covid-19 pandemic adds nightmares.
Especially since the vaccination campaigns are very deficient.
Until this Sunday, Mexico had immunized 7% of its population.
Less than Brazil (9.1%), than Argentina (9%) and, of course, than Chile (37.4%).
In Guatemala, only 0.7% of the population received a dose of the vaccine.
In Honduras, 0.5%.
And in El Salvador, 2.5%.
The exodus also causes conflicts between the sending countries.
The government of Alejandro Giammattei, in Guatemala, looks at the border with Honduras and El Salvador as the North Americans look at the one that separates them from Mexico.
Giammattei signed a controversial decree on March 29 to militarize the area, redoubling control over the Chimicula area, where routes from neighboring countries converge.
Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are for Biden the advanced zone of a region with several sources of instability.
Jair Bolsonaro pilots a military storm despite - or because - having removed the leadership of an Armed Forces reluctant to be politicized.
Not satisfied with this problem, he opened an interdict with the Superior Federal Court.
Nicolás Maduro turned to the United Nations to pacify the border with Colombia.
Colombians are accused of an unusual strategy of mining the area with terrorist forces.
The elections that took place on Sunday in Peru exposed a pulverized political class, which discourages the hope that the country will solve a crisis that has already swallowed several governments.
The most voted candidate, Pedro Castillo, did not get more than 15.8% of the adhesions.
Sebastián Piñera, in Chile, managed the pandemic quite effectively, beyond the relaxation that raised the death toll.
Before that problem broke out, he was teetering on a street rebellion without clear flags or defined personality.
Bolivia is split in two, with the MAS ruling party chasing its rivals with jail.
Against this background is cut the trip that began this weekend the head of Latin America of the National Security Council, Juan González, and Julie Chung, his counterpart from the State Department, to Colombia, Argentina and Uruguay.
Three countries with different degrees of affinity with Washington.
Also with different influence on the part of China, which is one of the concerns of the United States Government when it observes the region.
But with a priceless capital: a minimum amount of stability.
González and Chung march south with the satisfaction of the Ecuadorian electoral result: in the second round of the presidential elections this Sunday the businessman Guillermo Lasso prevailed.
In Buenos Aires that data can be uncomfortable.
Lasso succeeded with the advice of Jaime Durán Barba.
Mauricio Macri's main consultant.
Macri: the demon of the Kirchner government.
