Tanzina Vega: An increase in migrants arriving at the Southern border largely from central America is testing the Biden administration's approach to immigration policy. According to Politico, in February alone, more than 100,000 migrants were apprehended or turned themselves over to authorities at the border.

This week, Biden tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the United States response and reduce the number of migrants arriving at the Southern border by addressing the root causes of their departures from countries including Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

Vice President Kamala Harris: "There's no question that this is a challenging situation. As the President has said, there are many factors that lead residents to leave these countries and while we are clear that people should not come to the border now, we also understand that we will enforce the law and that we also, because we can chew gum and walk at the same time, must address the root causes that cause people to make the trek that the President has described to come here."

Tanzina Vega: While a significant portion of those arriving at the border are unaccompanied minors, there are also adults hoping to find work in the United States as vaccine distributions continue and sectors of the economy begin to come back to life.

With me to discuss Vice President Harris's first solo mission is Ariel Ruiz Soto, a Policy Analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, and Eugene Daniels a White House correspondent for Politico and Playbook co-author. Thanks to you both for being with us.

Eugene Daniels: Thank you.

Ariel Ruiz Soto: Thank you so much for having me.

Tanzina Vega: Eugene, President Biden has sort of been dismantling many of the controversial immigration policies of the Trump administration. He repealed the Muslim ban. He stopped construction on the border wall. He introduced legislation to provide a path to citizenship for around 11 million immigrants in the United States, but he hands this issue to Vice President Kamala Harris. What are your initial thoughts on that?

Eugene Daniels: I think, first of all, we have been begging and asking for months like, "What is her portfolio? What's she going to be working on?" The things that they kept telling us, aides kept telling me was that she would be dealing with the most important issues facing the administration.

This is one of the most important issues facing the administration and everything they've said is that her experience in California as attorney general, she led a group of attorney generals down to some of these countries to meet with their counterparts. She worked on immigration issues in the Senate as well and that she had the experience that they wanted.

I think my read is that all of that experience together and her ability to, as her aides tell me and people who worked with her in the Senate, to kind of look at this as both a diplomatic concern, a policy issue, and also kind of like a humanitarian crisis. They're also very clear to say that this isn't about her fixing the border crisis, this is about these long-standing issues, these root causes of why people leave these Northern triangle countries.

Tanzina Vega: Let's talk about that because that's something that I think is obviously an international issue, that's something that would require, I'm sure, the buy-in of the secretary of state and others at some point, but, Ariel, Harris is tasked with the no small task here is to really deal with the underlying issues that are motivating this migration. Where does she even begin?

Ariel Ruiz Soto: It's a complicated strategy that has to be laid out for Vice President Harris. What needs to begin at the moment is to first set up and re-establish a working relationship with the countries and the governments in the region. That includes one that is based on principles and transparency and accountability. That is sort of what has been lacking so far. That there has been some initiatives in the past, but it's been unclear so far what has been the outcomes of those initiatives and exactly what the countries from the region are willing to do to also address the migration crisis that we're seeing across the region.

Here, it's important to note that there are some things that the United States can do in the short term, but to really set up a sustainable regional migration system requires for the other countries to actually be willing to invest their own resources and also invest their political capital to create some of the longer pathways that we need to see here so that we're not recurring to these types of situations again in a few years.

Tanzina Vega: Ariel, with the understanding that this is a deeply complex issue that is not something that we can figure out in two segments on our show today. If we had to identify an immediate priority that Vice President Harris particularly in terms of this international effort that has to be made, where should she begin? Is it Guatemala? Is it Mexico? Is it El Salvador? Is there something that rises to the very top that should be handled first?

Ariel Ruiz Soto: I think it depends in what countries you're looking at and that's something that I'm hoping that the Vice President will take a close look at when she begins to engage with the countries. In Guatemala, for example, education and malnutrition are the key topics to be addressed. In Honduras, it has to be corruption and political instability, and in El Salvador, violence has been, though it's been lowered and homicides have been falling in that country, more needs to be done to actually work with at-risk youth who may be at risk of joining gangs in that country.

Tanzina Vega: Eugene, President Biden had a similar task when he was Vice President himself under then-President Obama, that didn't work out so well, did it?

Eugene Daniels: No, it didn't. We still have these same issues. Then you had four years of an administration that kind of took a different tact when it comes to these. I think that is something that we've been asking aides like, "What lessons did he learn?"

Ambassador Roberta Jacobson, she's a special assistant to the President and was previously the US Envoy to Mexico. She said that all of them that worked on this learned a lot. They learned how and who to give money to. They learned that because of some of the corruption in some of these countries, that you have to be careful about just giving it to leaders in the country because of that corruption and finding ways to use public-private partnerships to get at those root causes and make sure that there are, as I think the President said on Thursday in his press conference, lights in the streets so people can walk safely.

It's things like that that they have learned from what he did, and obviously, they didn't start really dealing with that issue until kind of toward the end of the second term. When I talk to her aides, they say that Kamala Harris has the benefit of starting this very early on. We're still in the first few months of their term and so I think that part of it is good for her in the sense that maybe there is some kind of status quo shakeup that can be fixed in the next few years.

Tanzina Vega: Ariel, Obama had a history or was called the deporter in chief, not very empathetic according to many immigration policy advocates towards his treatment of immigrants here in the United States. What opportunity does the Biden-Harris administration and particularly Harris in this current role have to create an empathetic approach to immigration?

Ariel Ruiz Soto: There is a growing opportunity where I think we have to acknowledge that we're in a movement or in a current moment right now that really provides some opportunity across the region to change the dynamic and the messaging and how we do regional migration systems.

I think he has to start not only with focusing at the enforcement or managing controllables from the region, which I think has been sort of the key focus as well as investing in the region which is now the newer strategy to look at the root cause of migration, but also to be more empathetic by offering and increasing, or rebuilding humanitarian protection systems across the region and creating temporary legal pathways. That's sort of the one key issue that really gets left out.

When we talk about messaging for migrants, it's important not only to say, "Don't come right now, this border is closed", but say also, "Don't come right now, we are beginning to build the systems or these mechanisms for you to come legally in the future." That type of empathetic and more comprehensive look, I think, will go a long ways in the region to try to understand not only how the United States returns or removes migrants to these countries, but what it can do to actually make sure that they come in a more safe and orderly way.

Tanzina Vega: Eugene, I'm wondering whether there's political risk here for Harris in becoming the face of the White House's response to the humanitarian crisis at the Southern border?

Eugene Daniels: Yes. I think there is. This is such a large issue and it's one that has-- the word that I keep hearing from people is a boondoggle. That over the last decade or so, it's only gotten worse. On Capitol Hill and in the White House of the prior administrations, there's not been a lot done to actually fix it. We haven't overhauled our immigration plans in this country in policies for a very long time.

I think the opportunity for her is that any kind of change from the status quo is going to be seen as a huge win. It's also important to remember that the "surge or the flow of migrants" that we're seeing right now is seasonal. When you talk to immigration advocates, they point to the fact that- and they kind of laugh about it, but like, "The sun comes out and people go outside."

That's how we think about it here. That's the same way because people can make this long and terrible trek in weather that's more favorable than winter. That's an opportunity for her as well because there's not going to be like this immigrant advocacy in six months or seven or eight months.

It won't be as tough for her, but I do think there's risk because Republicans especially are going to try to tie her role in dealing with these Northern Triangle countries and Mexico and doing the diplomatic work, working on the long-term causes of these migration trends with what's happening at the border. How the Biden administration and Camala Harris are able to differentiate her from that issue is going to be key to how the media covers it, honestly.

Tanzina Vega: Ariel, when we think about-- We mentioned a little bit about what President Biden has done so far in terms of trying to undo many of the immigration policies set forth by President Trump. Are you satisfied so far with what the rollbacks of some of those policies have been, and when it comes to this specific issue with what we're seeing happening, the humanitarian crisis unfolding at the border, are you satisfied so far with how it's being handled?

Ariel Ruiz Soto: Look, I think that President Biden, certainly, here is in a conundrum trying to manage a situation that has been increasingly more difficult, the US Mexico border while at the same time trying to implement different policies in the interior, and I think those two things are really well-connected, actually.

At the border, I think, while we may know that the numbers haven't- or still, the rising could fall in the future, what the United States really needs, and actually, the region really needs is to establish a system that is flexible and adaptable to the changes and lows and is not reactive, but proactive. That's something that we haven't really been seeing yet at the border and have not had enough clarity yet from the President on what that's going to look like.

I expect that Vice President Harris will be able to, at some point, make a more considered effort there. Again, it's not only about knowing what's right now happening at the border, but also what's ahead of us in the future. Being more proactive, not only includes trying to understand how to build capacity to process and allow vulnerable immigrants, for example, in this case, minor children, but others as well, it also takes into account making sure that we have an effective system that starts by looking at what could be happening in the future.

At this moment, we have central American migration being the lead here, but there's also signs that there could be growing migration from other parts of the world that we need to take a lead here and be proactive on. If we can do that, I think, in the US-Mexico border and work with our partners in the region, I think we'll be better set up for any future migration changes.

Tanzina Vega: Eugene, taking all of that into account, what Ariel just laid out, is there an appetite in Congress for substantial immigration reform? It feels like today on the show, we're talking about two things that constantly seem to get held up in Congress and that's gun reform and immigration reform. What's the likelihood of some real substantive change coming out of this administration and Congress?

Eugene Daniels: In Congress specifically, it's hard to see because you have two parties that are so opposite on how they think about immigration. It used to be-- We hear there was this gang of eight or whatever, that was when they were getting together and talking about immigration and immigration reform, but you have four years of Republicans having such harsh immigration rhetoric and policies. It's hard to see how they find middle ground with Democrats who are on the opposite end of that.

In this country where everything is as tense as it is and the margins in Congress are as tight as they are, 50/50 in the Senate, it's hard to see anything move past, especially if the filibuster is intact in the Senate.

Tanzina Vega: Last question for you, Eugene. The press has been left out and not given access to many of the facilities that are holding unaccompanied minors. Do we expect that to change? We've got less than a minute to go.

Eugene Daniels: President Biden said that that would change on Thursday in his first press conference. That's something that we've been demanding. The one that NBC News was allowed to go in as the pool and share a video with everyone else, was kind of a nicer facility, and aspirational was how Jen Psaki put it in a press briefing earlier this week. That's not what we want to see. We want to see where the children are being kept and we want to see what those look like. President Biden has promised that. He didn't say when, but he also said, "I want to formulate some plans first". It's like cleaning up your house before people come in kind of deal, is how I read that.

Tanzina Vega: Eugene Daniels is White House correspondent for Politico and Playbook co-author and Ariel Ruiz Soto is Policy Analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. Eugene, Ariel, thanks to you both for joining us today.

Ariel Ruiz Soto: Thank you.

Eugene Daniels: Thanks so much.

Copyright © 2021 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.