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US president Biden visits the southern border with Mexico where there is a surge of migrants mostly from Nicaragua. He meets Texas Governor Abbott and visits the El Paso border area and El Paso county Migrant Support Center. He will then meet Lopez Obrador of Mexico and Justin Trudeau of Canada in a summit meeting in Mexico. This report in the WSJ says Mr. Biden is pursuing policy that will send back migrants including Title 42 used by the Trump administration. Republicans have made the border a top priority. Trump era policy requires Mexico to take back 30,000 migrants a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Biden plans to continue these policies for illegal entry to stem the surge.

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The Biden administration is taking steps to address influx of illegal migrants from Guatemala and Nicaragua through Mexico. It is also true that the US with very low unemployment of 3 percent is now facing a labor shortage. A bipartisan hearing on immigration in US Congress showed Republican senior Senator Lindsey Graham saying that the US economy faces a need for workers on its farms, meat packing plants, restaurants from what he hears from businesses in North Carolina. Without this help many farms would close and we would starve, said Graham.

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Title 42, a Trump administration rule made it possible to send back migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvaor and Mexico now accounts for only 40% of immigrants, the rest are from other countries such as Nicaragua with which the US has no relations for sending people back. People from countries such as Russia, India are also crossing the border in this way. The US Supreme Court recently ruled that Title 42 cannot be terminated till it has looked at in more detail. The result is that people from many countries have crossed the the US border with Mexico in large numbers in 2022.

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Aikins points out the change from Mexicans crossing the border to the people from Central America fleeing Guatemala, San Salvador and Nicaragua. More recently people from Venezuela as entire states become dysfunctional, either from gang violence and lack of law and order in central America or in Venezuela from crippling inflation and economic collapse. It is a problem that America as a whole not just this or that party can resolve, by changing the entire system of immigration the way the European Union has already done and by keeping migrants in their own countries by bringing these countries into a state of stable economic growth, and making them resilient to economic and political shocks.

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Emilio Montalvan, who led the struggle for democracy in Nicaragua, Central America.

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The role played by diplomat Bernard Aronson in the Havana, Cuba peace talks between the Santos government in Colombia and FARC guerilla group. Aronson's diplomatic efforts helped bring peace to Salvador and Nicaragua after years of conflict.

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Kamala Harris made remarkable progress in her handling of Central America (Guatemala, San Salvador and Nicaragua) during her assignment of tackling the problems in this region that were leading to high migration. A drought had hit agricultural regions in Guatemala adding to the surge at the time.  Here is how Harris tackled the problems of the economy, food, poverty, lack of jobs and migration from Guatemala. Harris increased investment in the region getting private and government sources in the US to invest $5 billion in the region. 250,000 jobs were created from this effort with loans from IDFC and US AID and State Department. Northern Central America was facing a hunger crisis and it was Harris who pulled together $300 million in emergency humanitarian assistance. Harris held corrupt leaders to account. Anti-corruption candidate Arevalo was elected president of Guatemala in 2023 through her efforts to ensure the rule of law and democracy are respected after the chaos of the Trump years. Joint taskforce Alpha was set up combining efforts of 3 US agencies to conduct countersmuggling operations.    ...

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Friedman made a similiar point before the presidential election in the US about Obama's inexperience and using the Afghan war to burnish his credentials. See the link to Friedman. Here Congressman Wilson is shown as using Tip O'Neill's and Democrats opposition to the Reagan support for the contras in Nicaragua as the good fight and the use of the support of the "good" war against the soviets in Afghanistan to ward off accusations from Republican right of weakness against the Soviet Union's expansion.

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 Harris's role for the Border was limited to telling Central American migrants to stay home. Much of the migration was a result of wars started in the Reagan years in Central American states of Nicaragua and San Salvador. This destabilized the region and led to gangs taking over parts of the country in San Salvador and entrenching Castro style regime in Nicaragua, leading to outward migration of young people. As this report points out Harris was supposed to take on decades of such misguided policies in Central America in a few months. A drought hit agricultural coffee regions of Guatemala increasing migration. Her role instead was to ensure several wins. Win No.1 to generate stability setting up the peaceful transfer of power in Guatemala, singling out corrupt regimes. Win No. 2 to generate jobs. US AID and IFDC loans were increased, foreign investment attracted to generate 250,000 jobs. Win No. 3 the increased stability led to gradually declining migration from Central America. What replaced it was Venezuela. And that is a repeat story of Reagan style wars in Central America. Under the Trump Administration the US did not take up the Monroe Doctrine and act directly to support a stable fairly elected government in Venezuela, an obvious solution. Instead going half way- destabilizing the government but then left it on its own. The result about a third of the population leaving the country in these years to Colombia and other parts of Latin America in a immense humanitarian tragedy.  In 2023 Venezuelans not Guatemalans entered at the US Border in large numbers, most of them middle class families that left Venezuela after hyperinflation and mismanagement of the economy. Realizing the danger by January 2024 Biden negotiated with Senate Minority Leader McConnell and his Republican representative Senator Lankford to pass legislation in the Senate closing the Border. All that was needed was the House to act and 30 years of Border problem would be solved.This was blocked in the House by new Speaker Mike Johnson on advice from former president Trump who chose to use the issue in the 2024 election. Biden then used his executive powers to close the Border leading to lower numbers of migrants under Biden by July 2024 than under Trump. Migration Border Czar was never a term used by Democrats in the Obama and Biden years. Biden who also served in a role given migration as one of the issues to handle under Obama, had this as only one of his assignments. Biden played more important roles in foreign policy with his experience as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for decades. Border policy was made by president Obama and his advisers. The same is true of Harris, Border policy being done by president Biden and his advisers. Similar to Biden's role as VP Harris was given assignment to cover foreign policy and was the US representative at 3 Munich Security Conferences in 2021-2024 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Chancellor Scholz of Germany said of Harris last week that he had full confidence in Harris as both competent and experienced. ...

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The importance of microsavings in addition to microloans in poor parts of developing countries. In West Africa some businesses charge 40% to take deposits. In poor villages often money that sits around is spent on unnecessary things or gets wasted, especially when the savings can improve the lives of people there. Kristof talks about one family in rural Nicaragua that would spend alarge part of its savings $1.75 on three litre bottle of Coke. With Catholic Relief Services offering a padlocked woodbox in which villagers could put in one dollar or 50 cents, a culture of saving is developing. Now the Machado family buys Cke only once a week and the rest of the time puts the savings of$10 a month in the CRS box.

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Juan Manuel Santos, former president of Colombia helped negotiate the peace with the FARC guerilla movement in Colombia. Here he points out the changes in South America that have led to the end of guerilla conflicts. This achievement comes after extended conflicts that affected Peru, Colombia, central American countries Nicaragua, San Salvador, Guatemala, following conflicts in Brazil and Argentina that led to the formation of military dictatorships that fought battles with guerilla movements. This goes back to the Castro movement in Cuba against the dictatorship of Batista, and the Cold War during the Krushchev days of the Soviet Union in the sixties. Much of this has ended, yet Santos draws a conclusion that the Western hemisphere is in peace that ignores the legacy of these conflicts. In many places the drug trade has simply moved to places further north, to destabilize governments in central America. The guerillas have become part of the drug trade as ways to integrate them into society have lagged behind or not worked. As a result life is difficult in central America leading to migration northward, similar to migration to Europe from war torn regions in North Africa. Mexico has continued as a key part of the drug trade affecting rural communities in places previously untouched by drugs such as New Hampshire and places in the northeastern U.S., even after a decade of war against drug trafficking gangs by Mexican president Calderon. It also destabilizes Mexican politics such as the murder of 42 students in Guerrero province for civil activism. It is also destabilizing a major democracy such as the U.S. as Donald Trump has sought support from communities devastated by drugs in the U.S., and sought support for a racist approach to politics. For these reasons the more visible conflicts of North and South America are now replaced with a less visible but no less insidious and dangerous mix in politics that has entered civil life and discourse across the region.  ...

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Michael Shear says president Biden is listening to his head about the US Border with Mexico- that he would close the US Border if the bipartisan bill is passed in the US Congress, the same day that he signs it to become law. The new bill agreed to in negotiations between Senator Graham and other Republican Senators and the White House ends current parole and asylum policy  that have led to chaos at the border. Shear who has covered presidents for 30 years shows that president Biden held the view that he was elected to provide a human face to the crisis at the border from international migration and close private prisons and poor treatment of children. He listened to both sides of his party during 2021 and 2022 after becoming increasingly aware that something was wrong and by Jan 2023 was convinced that tough action was needed at the border to deport Haitians and other people from central America smuggled northward with 13 flights a day to Haiti to deport illegal migrants.  He made his first major immigration speech at that time. The problem was that there was a major upheaval in Venezuela adding to the tide of illegal migrants as Venezuela sent millions to all countries in Latin America and north to the US, an international crisis playing out in Colombia and other neighbors for the last 10 years. When Lopez Obrador of Mexico closed his own migrant deportations Biden sent Blinken to Mexico with Homeland Security minister Mayorkas, and after discussions Obrador resumed the deportations. Trains going north in Mexico had conductors who were bribed to slow down to take on migrants. This was stopped and all trains going north were stopped at Eagle Pass in December 2023. Republican governors Abbott of Texas and DeSantis of Florida have sent busloads or flights of these migrants to New York and other cities in the US showing that the entire system of migrant handling was breaking down even as president Biden was convinced by his own advisers including Jake Sullivan that the border required tough action. The president increased planned legal migration to lower illegal migration from Nicaragua and rest of Latin America. By January 2024 Biden was convinced the only solution was closing the US Border immediately after the bipartisan solution. Lindsay Graham senior Republican Senator agreed with Biden with one problem- the Republicans in US House of Representatives did not think it right to work with president Biden to settle the problem.  ...

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The current or former vice presidents or executive committee members at the top of the FIFA soccer organization who were arrested by Swiss authorites at the request of the U.S. Justice Department are from small countries such as Paraguay, Uruguay, Trinidad and Tobago, and two officials from the Cayrran Islands which most people have not heard of. Others are from Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Venezuela in the central American region. This tells a lot about why the FIFA is in such a mess today. One nation, one vote means Trinidad counts for as much as England and Germany. There are 209 members with many being small nations such as Botswana. It is based in Zurich, was founded in 1904, and is subject to Swiss law. The result say critics is that there is very little change at the top, with Seth Blatter the FIFA head since 1998 in near complete control and very little prospect of change. He worked his way from secretary to president, and was previously employed by Swiss watchmaker Longines. Some critics describe the situation as reminiscent of medieval fiefdoms, and lacking the openness and transparency so essential in a body governing one of the most popular sports in the world....

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Lulu Garcia-Navarro interviews Homeland Security head Alejandro Mayorkas and asks him direct questions about the border with Mexico, published Feb 2, 2024 in NYT. Why the surge in migrants asks Navarro. Mayorkas is himself a Cuban born immigrant. Republicans in the House are impeaching Mayorkas. Navarro asks can you clearly say what has gotten us to this place and what went wrong? Clearly something had happened in Latin America. Central America drove migrants north after conflicts in Salvador, in Nicaragua and drought affecting Guatemala's agriculture for over 2 decades under different administrations. Mayorkas says in response to the question that the world is experiencing the largest level of human displacement that it has seen since World War II. He says the entire hemisphere is experiencing the enormous displacement in Venezuela as its economy collapsed. During the nineteenth century after president Monroe put forward the Monroe Doctrine that created a uniquely American sphere that asked European powers to stay away from the Americas north and south, any attempt by European powers was seen as an hostile act. It was American opposition to European colonialism. By the time of the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations this policy was not followed with the intervention of the Soviet Union in Cuba leading to a a wave of refugees from Cuba in the sixties. In the last decade the situation in Venezuela has worsened to the point that 8 million people have left Venezuela for neighboring nations, 2 million to Colombia alone, destabilizing the southern hemisphere. Venezuelans many from the educated middle class form the bulk of the surge in migrants across the US border with Mexico in 2022 and 2023. The problems were actually exacerbated under the Republican administration as the Venezuelan inflation spiralled after 2016 skyrocketing into hyper inflation by 2018 leading to the flow of immigrants outward that reached 8 million. This kind of hyperinflation the worst in the history of Latin America need not have happened with better managing of the crisis at that time. Mayorkas says the problem is that America's system of asylum is broken and both parties need to fix it. This is proposed by Tillis-Graham and Lankford all Republicans in the US Senate with president Biden's support. When he joined the Department of Homeland Security in 2009 Mayorkas says, US Border Patrol chief told him the real problem was that from the moment a migrant claims asylum at the border under US law and the adjudication of that claim it takes several years. This is the root of the problem the law can be fixed with the will of enlightened persons in both parties by simply passing a new law. Immigrants from Latin America are just as likely to vote Republican as Democratic and this may be particularly true for Venezuela's middle class that left the country as the economy collapsed with policies that led to inflation not seen in this hemisphere.  The other alternative is for the US and both parties to agree to what would be today's version of the Monroe doctrine- then opposing European colonialism, now opposing the breakup from within of Democratic countries in Latin America leading to waves of migration north of the border and causing upheavals all over the western hemisphere. Much less a policy of such resolution both parties have failed to fix basic policies of asylum and parole that today are being addressed by legislation being put together by Senator Lankford of Oklahoma, Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, Senator Tillis of North Carolina, three core states that are Republican since the Civil War, with the help of the White House and Senator Schumer. Yet in the House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson calls it dead on arrival simply refusing to break the status quo. ...