WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden, watching tens of thousands of migrants from Central America reach the U.S.-Mexico border just a few months into his administration, tapped his second-in-command to help address the influx — a decision that has exposed Vice President Kamala Harris to one of her biggest political liabilities.
In grappling with migration, Harris proceeded cautiously. She focused her time and prestige on boosting private investment in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, the so-called Northern Triangle; her goal was to help create jobs to bolster economies and dissuade migrants from making the perilous journey to the United States.
It was a decidedly long-term — and limited — approach to a humanitarian crisis, and it has allowed Republicans to tie her to the broader fight over the border. While migration from the Northern Triangle ebbed, it surged from other nations, sparking an emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, one that Republicans have aggressively sought to exploit at Harris' expense.
A review of Harris’ work on immigration reveals a record that is more nuanced than the one presented by her critics or allies. It also provides insights into how Harris — who took over as the Democratic standard-bearer when Biden dropped out of the presidential race last month — might tackle one of the nation’s most vexing concerns.
Harris was never the “border czar,” or put in charge of border security or halting illegal border crossings, as former President Donald Trump, Republicans and even the occasional media outlet have claimed. Instead, she was tasked in March 2021 with tackling the “root causes” of migration from the Northern Triangle and pushing its leaders — along with Mexico’s — to enforce immigration laws, administration officials said.
Harris’ backers say she demonstrated leadership by leveraging her stature to win investments that might curb migration years down the road.
“She felt — and I think she was right — that what she could do the most was help basically lead the effort to draw in investment, using the confidence that a relationship with the White House would give to investors,” said Ricardo Zúniga, a former State Department official who specialized in the Northern Triangle and who traveled with Harris to the region.
Critics contend that she could have done far more but chose a less risky path, ensuring the problem only worsened.
“She was like, ‘nope, I’m just root causes,'’” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for less immigration. “Even if it worked, it’s the sort of thing that takes generations, not one term.”
He also said there was no evidence that Harris pushed Mexico and the Northern Triangle nations to enforce immigration laws.
Harris has defended her work, and her campaign began running a television ad Friday that said Harris as president would “hire thousands more border agents and crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking." Democrats have also blasted Trump for helping tank a bipartisan immigration bill earlier this year that would have increased funding for border security, including the hiring of new Customs and Border Protection personnel.
Trump “has been talking a big game on securing the border, but he does not walk the walk,” the vice president said last month in Atlanta. Later, she added, “Donald Trump does not care about border security. He only cares about himself.”
Immigration has long been an issue that motivates Trump and his base of supporters, and polls show it is among the most important issues on the minds of voters. As a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump said he would build a wall along the border between the United States and Mexico and get Mexico to pay for it. Trump was not able to complete the project, and Mexico did not fund the part of the barrier that was constructed. The former president also used explosive language to describe immigrants, launching his campaign by suggesting Mexico was sending its “rapists” and criminals to the United States.
While in office, Trump sought to tightly restrict asylum, which was challenged in the courts. This time around, Trump has promised to oversee a “mass deportation” of migrants who have committed crimes in the United States.
Migration numbers have spiked and dropped during both presidencies. Border Patrol arrests on the southern border fell in Trump's first year in office, then shot back up his next two, rising to more than 850,000 in 2019. The numbers plunged in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic before rising even higher during Biden's presidency, reaching a peak of more than 250,000 encounters in December 2023, before falling below 84,000 in June of 2024, federal statistics show.
When Biden took office, he reversed dozens of Trump’s moves on immigration even as apprehension numbers began to rise.
Harris received the migration assignment when border crossings were rising, garnering considerable attention and leading to bipartisan calls for action.
Chris Newman, an immigration rights advocate in Los Angeles, said Harris was put in a difficult spot.
“She was tasked with developing a long-term policy framework rather than creating a short-term political performance project,” said Newman, the legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
Biden and Harris had taken office only two months before, and Harris was under pressure to build her policy portfolio. When he was vice president, Biden had taken on a similar role on immigration. In 2021, though, Harris was dealing with an especially challenging situation given the lack of governing partners in the region. El Salvador's new president, Nayib Bukele, had a fraught relationship with the administration due to human rights questions raised by his crackdown on crime in his nation. The man who was then president of Honduras has since been convicted of drug trafficking.
The headaches for Harris began almost immediately, validating the concerns of some on her team that it was a no-win assignment.
Harris traveled to Mexico and Guatemala in June 2021, where she defended the fact she had not been to the U.S.-Mexico border during an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt by saying she hadn't "been to Europe. And I mean, I don’t … understand the point that you’re making.”
She also drew criticism on that trip for warning migrants bluntly: “Don't come” to the U.S.
Harris decided to focus on bringing private investment to the region, tapping into a network of business and nonprofit executives and using the prestige of the White House to signal the Biden administration was backing this effort.
The work linked multinational companies — like Visa, Nestle and Meta — with smaller nonprofits and Latin American businesses, all of which pledged to increase their investments or bolster their work with at-risk communities.
The Associated Press contacted all thenearly two dozen companiesthe White House touted as participants in the outreach effort. Some, like AgroAmerica, a sustainable food corporation, that pledged to invest more than $100 million in six new projects, reported their work had begun and they were on track to meet their investment goals. Others, including Columbia Sportswear Company, said they would likely surpass their pledges.
Most companies, however, either declined to comment or did not respond when asked about their efforts.
The vice president’s office has said Harris' efforts have generated more than $5.2 billion in investment promises. In an illustration of how long it takes the promises to translate into concrete spending, the State Department reported that companies have plowed nearly $1.3 billion in the region as of June 2024, the bulk of it in Guatemala and Honduras.
“We are on track to exceed our commitments,” Peter Bragdon, a top executive at Columbia Sportswear Company, said of their promise to purchase up to $200 million in products from the region. That pledge would create nearly 7,000 jobs over five years, the company said. The executive called Harris’ efforts a “work in progress” but “a smart approach.”
Katie Tobin, who worked as the top migration adviser at the National Security Council for three years, credited Harris’ focus with spurring investment in reducing these numbers, arguing that Harris “was able to leverage her credibility” and the power of the White House to persuade companies to invest in “a risky investment environment.”
“That was very much Kamala Harris,” she added. “I have never seen something like that done before in this space and it made a real impact.”
Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, a sharp critic of Harris, said the vice president and White House were taking credit for investments that would have been made anyway.
The companies are “not doing it because someone asked them to,” said Scott, who co-founded a major medical company. “They’re doing it because it makes economic sense.”
Harris also sought to address endemic corruption that has fueled migration from Central America. Before her 2021 trip to Guatemala, Harris met with a group of exiled Guatemalan prosecutors and judges in Washington.
Among them was Thelma Aldana, a former chief prosecutor who fled her country after what she said were politically motivated corruption charges.
“I came out of it convinced that she has a genuine interest in seeing things change in Central America,” Aldana said.
The vice president also deserves credit for helping stop Guatemala’s former president, Alejandro Giammattei, from overturning the 2023 election of his successor, Bernardo Arévalo, according to Luis Von Ahn, a U.S.-based technology entrepreneur from Guatemala.
“Giammattei didn’t want to leave power, the administration of Kamala Harris came and told him ’stop (messing) around,'” said Von Ahn, the founder of the language app Duolingo. “That’s a big help to Guatemala. If an extremely corrupt president doesn’t want to leave it’s terrible and (his exit) lets us be a better country.”
While the Harris campaign and White House have pointed to statistics that show migration from Northern Triangle countries has dropped substantially since early 2021, there is debate over what is responsible for that drop.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said Harris and the administration deserve credit for the reduction because their efforts “worked.”
Independent analysts, however, said they were skeptical that Harris’ approach was responsible for the dip. They said the decrease was likely driven by regional factors, including the ascension of El Salvador's new president and his aggressive drive to combat violent crime. His government reported a 70% drop in homicides in 2023.
Julia Gelatt, associate director of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, said investment can take years to alter migration patterns — if it ever does.
“Even a whole lot of economic development doesn’t curb immigration in the way countries hope it will,” Gelatt said.
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Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writer Sonia Pérez D. in Guatemala City contributed to this story.