As vice president, voters were constantly reminded during the 2020 election that President Joe Biden visited Latin America more than 16 times. So expectations were high heading into this year’s Summit of the Americas, set to be hosted in Los Angeles by the Biden administration.
The summit concludes today, but it is already safe to call it a complete failure.
For starters, hardly any leaders came. Biden announced early on that he was not inviting Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to attend the summit due to those countries’ human rights records. This might have earned Biden some credibility as a defender of human rights had he not also been so eager to supplicate himself to the leaders of Saudi Arabia and beg them to increase oil production, which they refused to do.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was the first leader to say he would skip the summit if Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela were not allowed to attend, and he was quickly joined by the leaders of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Bolivia. Biden stuck with his decision not to invite Cuba et al., and Obrador and his allies stuck with their promise to boycott the summit. As a result, hardly anyone showed, and hardly anything was accomplished.
And that’s a shame because there is much work to be done in Latin America, particularly on the issue of migration — problem is, the Biden administration still fundamentally misunderstands what is causing irregular migration in the region, and Americans will continue to suffer as a direct result.
Vice President Kamala Harris told the few summit attendees that did attend Wednesday, “I do believe most people don’t want to leave home.” She said those who do leave are “fleeing harm” or “simply cannot satisfy their basic needs.”
Anyone with even a cursory understanding of the border crisis knows this is completely false. Migrants are surging to the southern border because they know two things: first, that they can earn more money in the United States than they can in their home countries; and second, that once caught by Border Patrol, the Biden administration will release them into the U.S., free to go wherever they want, and Biden’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will make no effort to find them.
That is why border apprehensions started rising immediately after Biden was sworn into office. It is not, as Harris claims, that Latin American countries suddenly became more dangerous or poorer the second Biden became president — it is that Biden told Latin American countries he would dismantle former President Donald Trump’s border security policies, making it easier for them to come and stay here.
“You should come,” Biden famously told migrants during a 2019 Democratic primary debate. And once Biden was elected, they have. Biden has caught and released over 1.35 million illegal immigrants into the U.S., and thousands more are coming every day.
Not even Biden’s former boss, Barack Obama, was this impotent on border security. Facing a similar border surge in 2014, Obama pressured then-Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to step up enforcement of Mexico’s border security, even sending $100 million to Mexico to help him do the job. Nieto then implemented “Programa Frontera Sur,” which increased the number of border agents on Mexico’s southern border and added mobile checkpoints throughout the country. The enforcement worked and migration fell.
Admittedly, Obrador is far more resistant to border security enforcement, once calling unimpeded migration to the U.S. a “human right.” But Trump succeeded where Biden hasn’t even tried. He threatened to place tariffs on Mexican imports unless Obrador cooperated with his “Remain in Mexico” policy. Obrador caved to Trump’s strength, Remain in Mexico went into effect, and illegal migration plummeted.
Biden has neither the vision nor the will to secure the cooperation needed from other nations to bring mass illegal migration under control. And the entire hemisphere will continue to suffer as a result.
Source From: Washington Examiner
