- Migrants apprehended at the Guatemalan-Honduran border said that the U.S. and Vice President Kamala Harris aren’t doing enough to fix the issues in their home countries and that any suggestion that they are is “a lie,” they told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
- “No, in reality, everything is political. And politics doesn’t solve anything. Everything is a smoke bomb. It’s a lie. It’s an illusion. In Venezuela right now what we need is help, help that we don’t get. And so what we’re doing right now, we’re not doing it because we want to we’re not doing it out for fun. It’s because we need it,” one migrant from Venezuela told the DCNF.
- The migrants hope to reach the U.S., where they can support their families and live better lives.
AGUA CALIENTE, Guatemala — Migrants don’t believe that the U.S. is solving the immigration issue or addressing any of the “root causes” leading them to flee their countries, they told the Daily Caller News Foundation at the Guatemalan-Honduran border.
President Joe Biden tasked Vice President Kamala Harris with addressing immigration in March 2021, asking her to focus on the “root causes” of migration in Central America. Migrants on their way to the U.S. in Guatemala, many of whom are from Venezuela and Colombia, told the DCNF that any talk from the U.S. that it’s fixing the problems in their countries is “a lie” and if things were better at home, they wouldn’t be coming.
“No, in reality, everything is political. And politics doesn’t solve anything. Everything is a smoke bomb. It’s a lie. It’s an illusion. In Venezuela, right now what we need is help, help that we don’t get. And so what we’re doing right now, we’re not doing it because we want to, we’re not doing it out for fun, it’s because we need it,” one migrant from Venezuela told the DCNF when speaking about the U.S. efforts to solve issues in their home countries.
“To be honest, no,” a migrant from Colombia, Andre, told the DCNF.
The “root causes” plan the Biden administration rolled out in July 2021 focused on fixing corruption, economic and security issues — issues that migrants say aren’t being solved. Overall, the Biden administration has tried to create a “fair, orderly and humane immigration system” that attempts to solve the issue of migrants fleeing their homes in the first place. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Migrant Caravans Are Preparing To Flood The US Border Ahead Of Midterms, Senior Guatemalan Official Warns)
“We cannot solve the challenge at our border without addressing the lack of economic opportunity, weak governance and corruption, and violence and insecurity that compel people to flee their homes in the first place,” the Biden administration’s immigration plan states.
Andre pointed to the country’s new president and his former membership with the left-wing M-19 guerrilla movement as his reason for fleeing. “The left is now in office and Colombia is getting worse,” he said.
Daily Caller News Foundation at the Honduran-Guatemalan border
Guatemalan border authorities, who typically expel non-Central Americans back to Honduras, had just apprehended the migrants when the DCNF spoke with them.
“In reality, if we had the resources, and we could live freely in our countries … we wouldn’t be migrating because there’s professional people here,” the migrant from Venezuela added, saying that he’s an engineer and that their group includes a mechanic, another engineer and a police officer. “We’re all professionals. And we’re going through a hard time. We only need resources for our families because we want to give them a better life.”
The migrants from Venezuela had also been taken off guard by a new Biden administration policy to expel to Mexico illegal migrants from Venezuela, they said. A second migrant from Venezuela who spoke with the DCNF said that if there had been a clear message to migrants before they started their journey, it would have stopped them from coming.
“Our message is that he should have communicated in a better way the date in which we couldn’t continue those routes,” he said. “If they would’ve given us an early warning, and not all of a sudden, there’s already people that were here on their way and the only option that we have is to go back to our country, so through the jungle.”
EXCLUSIVE from Guatemala City: Here’s what Guatemalan President Alejandro Giamattei thinks of VP Kamala Harris’ efforts to address the “root causes of migration”@DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/W45mYFK3vO
— Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) October 25, 2022
Upon entering office, Biden reversed many Trump-era immigration policies focused on deportation and increasing barriers to entry. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered 2.4 million migrants at the southern border in fiscal year 2022, a new record driven by illegal migration of people from Central America and beyond.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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