The extent of the Biden administration’s success convincing Northern Triangle countries to curb migrant flows across their own borders is in question, with White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday acknowledging pacts with each nation announced recently are not “formal” agreements.
Psaki this week touted arrangements under which she said Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras would crack down on people leaving those countries or transiting through toward the U.S. southern border. But two days later, the administration’s Northern Triangle envoy testified before Congress that no such frameworks were in place.
“Whether or not it was a formal agreement, which it was not, and I never conveyed that it was, these were steps that these countries indicated they plan to take to increase personnel and security to reduce the number of migrants coming across the border,” Psaki told reporters Friday during her briefing.
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Psaki contended the White House never described any one of the pacts “as a formal declaration or a formal agreement,” Instead, she said the deployments were “additional steps that they were taking.”
Ricardo Zuniga, the administration’s top envoy to the region, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday no “agreements” had been “concluded with governments regarding border security,” when pressed by Texas Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro.
Psaki was questioned directly on Monday about the deals in which Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras would respectively station 10,000, 1,500, and 7,000 troops along their borders. She never corrected the reporter for calling the arrangements “agreements.” She, herself, categorized them as “commitments.”
“There have been a series of bilateral discussions between our leadership and the regional governments of Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala. Through those discussions, there was a commitment, as you mentioned, to increase border security,” Psaki said at the time.
Yet, Tyler Moran, a White House domestic policy official, told MSNBC last month the administration had “secured agreements” with Northern Triangle allies for boosted border security.
“Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala have all agreed to do this. That not only is going to prevent the traffickers and the smugglers and cartels that take advantage of the kids on their way here but also to protect those children,” he said.
Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Biden tapped as his point person on countering the root causes of the migration surge, is expected to travel to Mexico and Guatemala as soon as coronavirus pandemic conditions improve.
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To curb numbers, the United States can send aid and other resources to provide “some hope that if they stay at home, hope is on the way,” Harris said this week at the start of her first virtual meeting on the topic.
