Some of you may be old enough to remember back when Joe Biden had been in office for a couple of months and he tapped Kamala Harris to be the border czar. The veep then turned around and appeared to do precisely nothing about the border for quite a while, including going to see the situation herself. The White House later “clarified” Harris’ assignment, saying that rather than dealing with the crisis on the border itself, she would be working on addressing the “root causes” of illegal migration instead. (She did eventually make one trip to the northern triangle nations.)

Now, nearly two years later, we’re going to be hearing about the results of her hard work and investigations. This week, the White House will announce Harris’ master plan to curb illegal migration. And what does she have in mind? She’ll throw more money at the problem. And in a somewhat pleasant surprise, it won’t even be taxpayer money. Private companies seeking to curry favor with the administration are kicking in several billion dollars to send to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. So I assume the human invasion at the Mexican border should be ending any day now, eh? (Yahoo News)

Private companies have committed to invest $4.2 billion in northern Central America as part of an effort by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris to reduce migration, the White House said on Monday.

The latest figures, up from $3.2 billion announced in June 2022, stem from pledges by 47 companies and organizations, including the retailer Target and the Columbia Sportswear Company. In the new announcements on Monday, Target committed to increase its spending in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras by $300 million this year while Columbia said it would purchase $200 million in products in the region, creating more than 6,900 jobs over five years.

This “announcement” really isn’t anything new. The current plan to invest in the northern triangle countries has been in the works since last summer and previous administrations have engaged with them in a similar fashion. These foreign aid programs have never produced a significant reduction in the number of illegal aliens coming over our border.  And there are several good reasons for that.

For one thing, the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras are notoriously corrupt. The whole idea behind this “mitigation” strategy is to improve the lives and fortunes of the citizens of those nations so they might be less inclined to make a run for the border. But there is little to no assurance that the cash will ever reach the people in question. In fact, it’s entirely possible that some of that money will wind up in the hands of the gangs who help organize the caravans that frequently head north.

Also, even if you convince some of the aspiring migrants from these three countries to stay home, they are no longer the biggest part of the problem. More than half of the migrants being encountered at the border these days come from nations further south than that as well as from countries all around the world, including Ukraine and Russia. We can’t end poverty in every disadvantaged nation with a few handouts from Target so their people will stop heading for America.

The only cure for the Biden border crisis would be to seal the border and vastly expand the resources for both the Border Patrol and our immigration courts. If these companies are willing to pony up a few billion dollars, why not put the money toward those purposes? It might at least make some sort of difference that way.

So is this what our “border czar” has been up to for almost two years? It turns out that “studying the root causes of migration” for all this time only worked out to produce a modest increase in funding for an already extant program that promises little if any relief. But at least the cash isn’t coming from the magical money tree in the Rose Garden, so that’s something, I suppose.