US, Mexico Expand Cooperation on Development Programs in Northern Triangle

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris met Tuesday with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico City in her continuing effort to curb the surge of migrants to the southwestern U.S. border by bolstering economic conditions in Central America.

Harris and Lopez Obrador watched as aides signed a "memorandum of understanding" to "establish a strategic partnership to cooperate on development programs in the Northern Triangle" countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Tens of thousands of their citizens have left home to trek through Mexico to try to get into the United States in recent months, with more than 178,000 migrants reaching the U.S. border in April, nearly half from Central America. Harris, on her first foreign trip as vice president, had a blunt message Monday for Latin American migrants as she visited Guatemala: “Do not come.” She said the U.S. was “not afraid” to enforce its immigration laws and stop people at the border, but U.S. President Joe Biden has allowed unaccompanied migrant children to stay in the United States, unlike former President Doanld Trump, who expelled them. López Obrador, responding to a shouted question from a reporter whether Mexico was willing to increase its immigration enforcement, said he and Harris “will be touching on that subject, but always addressing the fundamental root causes” of the surge in migrants. Harris, according to her spokeswoman, told the Mexican leader in their private talks that the U.S. will make new efforts to increase economic investment in southern Mexico, including loans for affordable housing.