The United States will consider using sanctions and revoking visas from people involved in corruption in Northern Triangle countries as part of the White House’s push to curb the surge of migrants at the southern border.
The White House “has a mandate from the U.S. Congress to develop lists of officials who are involved in corruption and to propose actions against them,” Ricardo Zuniga, the Biden administration’s envoy to the Triangle region, said in a call with reporters Thursday.
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“That can range from using State Department authorities to revoke visas of people involved in corruption and their family members. It can also mean working through the Department of Justice,” said Zuniga. “We’ve got the global Magnitsky Act that we tend to make use of.”
Zuniga said the administration was also weighing whether to create a cross-government, anti-corruption task force. The effort would draw from the Justice Department and other U.S. agencies, with State Department backing, to focus on specific corruption cases and boost “the capacity of prosecutors, investigators, and others to actually move forward with cases.”
The threat of sanctions or other censures levied by the U.S. government marks an escalation against the leaders of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, the triangle countries where the White House is focusing its diplomatic efforts to counter the “root causes” of migration.
Former President Donald Trump fostered close ties with Central American leaders and the president of Mexico, securing agreements to help stem the flow of migrants headed to the U.S. border.
Biden officials have said repeatedly that they view corruption as a cause of illegal immigration to the U.S., which Zuniga reiterated on Thursday, calling this “one of the main drivers of instability” in the region.
“At the center of our efforts … is this fight against corruption and impunity and fostering the conditions that provide for [business sector] growth,” he added.
More than 14,000 unaccompanied minors were in government custody last month, with the Homeland Security Department estimating that the number will swell to 117,000 by the end of the year.
Tasked by Biden with forging a diplomatic solution to the crisis, Vice President Kamala Harris, a former California senator and state attorney general, has said she plans to marshal private sector investment and aid to civil society groups as ways to improve conditions.
“It’s important for the United States to show that we’re on the side of those who are victims of corruption and not on the side of those who are involved in corruption,” Zuniga said. “Part of this is demanding that accountability that the citizens of Central America demand. We are backing up and supporting that effort.”
Biden, during his campaign, pledged $4 billion to this mission but said he would give aid only to leaders that he trusts, setting up a potential conflict.
President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador has rebuked Biden’s rhetoric, arguing that his government needs business investment, not aid.
“We need the U.S. to buy more things from us, not amorphous grants of money to ‘strengthen democratic institutions,’ which just means more money into corrupt politicians’ hands,” an adviser to Bukele told the Washington Examiner.
The Biden administration has clashed with Bukele, who earned Trump’s support after rallying behind the former president’s restricted asylum policies, refusing to meet with the Salvadoran leader during an unannounced visit to Washington earlier this year.
In response, Bukele has said he won’t meet with Biden officials until the White House softens criticism of him, aides to the Central American leader told the Associated Press, refusing to sit down with Zuniga during a recent visit by the envoy to the region.
On Monday, Harris will meet virtually with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei, and she intends to travel to Central America in June, a White House official said on Wednesday. However, an aide did not respond to the question of whom she would meet with.
Asked why the administration was embracing Guatemala, whose leaders terminated an international commission charged with investigating and prosecuting serious crime in the country in 2019, Zuniga demurred.
“Mexico has really been our key partner in our efforts to manage migration,” Zuniga responded. “So in — the short version is that we, at this early date, have really focused on the countries that are at the center of this movement of people. Honduras certainly is the other main source, but Guatemala and Mexico are the main sources of irregular migration right now.”
While Biden officials have declined to call the situation at the southern border a “crisis,” the optics have dealt a political blow to the White House. Biden recently walked back a promise to boost the number of refugees the U.S. would accept before reversing the decision after pushback from allies in Congress.
Zuniga also said on Thursday that the White House had not struck agreements with the Triangle countries regarding security at their borders, as a White House official suggested in an interview last week with NBC, eliciting pushback from the foreign governments.
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“We don’t have new agreements to announce. What we have are — and they’re correct. We have a long history of collaboration with the region and on trying to manage migration,” Zuniga said.
