When people think about migration, they often think about it as a problem that starts and stops at our border, but in fact it is a global problem.
As a result, this significant domestic policy issue is also a foreign policy and national security issue.
And, like all tough matters of foreign policy and national security, it requires close coordination with our key partners.
Intensive bilateral and multilateral international engagement is core to the Biden-Harris Administration’s approach to ensuring American safety and security across a range of issues, including migration management.
Which is why over two years ago, at the Summit of the Americas in Southern California in June 2022, President Biden brought 20 heads of state together from across the Western Hemisphere to launch the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection.
At the time, we were confronting new migration patterns fueled by pandemic-induced economic disruptions, climate change, and repression in the region by autocratic leaders like Venezuela’s Nicholas Maduro, resulting in an unprecedented number of people on the move.
To tackle this challenge, the Los Angeles Declaration calls on all partner countries to invest in three mutually-reinforcing efforts:
- First, strengthening enforcement and disrupting the smuggling networks that profit off of vulnerable migrants.
- Second, expanding lawful pathways to provide opportunities for people to move safely and legally, as an alternative to risk-filled unlawful migration; and
- Third, fostering long-term stabilization and integration of migrants, while continuing to address the root causes of migration.
Today, I will talk about the ways in which we have collectively advanced these three, interdependent pillars of the Los Angeles Declaration.
First, we have used our immigration and law enforcement tools to deter unlawful migration and hold those who exploit vulnerable migrants accountable.
Over the past decade, we have seen transnational criminal organizations increasingly profit off of migrants. This pattern of exploitation is on vivid display in the Darien Gap – a treacherous mountain range and jungle connecting Colombia and Panama – where record numbers of migrants have paid smugglers to take them on harrowing journeys.
I saw this heartbreaking phenomenon first hand when I traveled there in 2022, and I can tell you that what is happening in the Darien is both a humanitarian and ecological crisis.
At home, we have taken of a series of steps to deter this kind of migratory movement by significantly strengthening the consequences facing those who arrive at our border unlawfully, within the constraints of current law.
Under the leadership of President Biden and Vice President Harris, we have:
- Surged law enforcement personnel and resources to the border;
- Adopted new rules and processes to streamline and incentivize lawful migration, while disincentivizing unlawful migration;
- Mobilized resources to increase investigations, arrests, and prosecutions of human smuggling and trafficking networks;
- Imposed visa restrictions and financial sanctions on criminal smuggling networks in the region; and
- Increased repatriation flights in order to return migrants more quickly.
President Biden and Vice President Harris have also repeatedly called on Congress to play its part and update our outdated asylum laws that no longer match the realities of our times and provide more resources so that we can do more to manage our border effectively.
Last year, the President directed his team to work with a bipartisan group of Senators to craft a tough and fair set of border reforms consistent with both our values and interests – including funding for 1,500 additional border personnel and more than 4,000 additional asylum officers to more quickly remove people encountered at the border who cross without authorization.
Unfortunately, the opposition to this constructive and comprehensive legislation was fierce, and it was twice voted down. As a result, President Biden had no choice but to take decisive executive actions on June 4 of this year to restrict asylum at the border during times of elevated encounters. These actions have led to a more than 50 percent reduction in unlawful entries at our border since June.
In the meantime, throughout our Administration, we have invested heavily in building strong multidimensional regional partnerships, in recognition that we cannot solve this problem alone:
- We have worked with countries across the region to launch new visa policies with significant results. In July, for example, Ecuador announced it was imposing visas on Chinese nationals, which helped reduce the number of these individuals arriving in and transiting Panama by 95 percent. In August Brazil imposed restrictions on the entry of Indian nationals along with other nationalities.
- We have also entered into biometric information-sharing agreements with countries throughout the region – enabling us to identify and prevent the travel of criminal actors before they arrive at our borders.
- Countries such as Mexico, Panama, and Costa Rica have also significantly increased repatriations of migrants, returning them early in their journeys north before they reach the United States.
Among all of these countries, our neighbor Mexico has been an essential partner in our endeavors to understand the mobility of people in our Hemisphere and address the challenges we face with humanity and discipline.
Early on, President Biden established a relationship of mutual respect with his Mexican counterpart President Lopez Obrador, and he asked me to worked closely with Mexican counterparts to develop and scale cooperation at the strategic, operational, and policy levels in pursuit of our joint interests across a range of security issues – from migration to fentanyl to arms trafficking.
And we see the results. For example, as Mexico increased resources and personnel devoted to enforcement and limited the unsafe use of trains and buses by migrants, we saw the number of unlawful migrants at our border decrease dramatically.
This created a deterrent effect that benefited Mexico and other partners in the region that were also coping with large influxes of migrants that overwhelmed their border management systems.
And that brings me to the second element of our three-pronged approach to managing migration: expanding lawful pathways.
We have paired our enforcement efforts with the establishment of viable, legal alternatives – giving migrants a safe, orderly and lawful option to choose over an unlawful and unsafe one.
And we have done this in concert with our regional partners such as Mexico; they have opened up legal pathways as well and together we have innovated to develop new approaches as circumstances presented us with unprecedented situations.
- For example, following Russia’s February 2022 invasion in Ukraine, we started to see large numbers of Ukrainian migrants arrive at our southwest border, seeking refuge in response to Putin’s unprovoked act of war.
- In response, the Department of Homeland Security launched a novel initiative that enabled Ukrainian nationals to register in Europe via a tablet-based application. If they confirmed they had U.S.-based supporters, they could secure permission to fly directly to the United States with lawful permission for arrival at a port of entry.
- When coupled with strong enforcement at the southwest border, the number of Ukrainians showing up irregularly at our southwest border plummeted to near zero almost overnight.
- We adopted a similar model with the Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV) parole process. In this innovative process that began in the fall of 2022, we established a balance. For a certain number of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans who applied to the program from the region, were fully vetted, and had confirmed U.S.-based supporters, we offered permits for lawful arrival and temporary work authorization. However, we made clear throughout the Hemisphere that those CHNV nationals who came unlawfully and neglected the procedures we established would be swiftly returned – and negotiated arrangements with our partners to conduct those returns. This program also resulted in an immediate, significant decrease in border encounters of those nationalities.
- As part of President Biden’s broader four-year effort to rebuild our refugee resettlement program, we launched the Safe Mobility Initiative, with offices now across the region in Guatemala, Colombia, Ecuador, and Costa Rica. Migrants can go to these centers to be screened for protection claims and access lawful pathways, without having to make a further journey.
- In part because of this initiative, the U.S. Government has increased the number of refugees resettled from this region from just 4,000 in 2022 to over 30,000 this year.
Together, these efforts have helped steer migrants away from dangerous unlawful routes – saving lives and, over time, substantially reducing flows to our border while creating an orderly process that incentivizes lawful entry.
Under the auspices of the Los Angeles Declaration, countries all over the region have stepped up to provide lawful pathways that complement ours and strengthen the incentive structure.
Mexico and Canada have both made new commitments, as part of the Los Angeles Declaration framework, to provide temporary work visas to help fill labor gaps.
And in May of this year, we launched Labor Neighbors – a bold new idea as part of the Safe Mobility Initiative – to help countries with significant labor needs to attract workers.
The goal of this initiative is to build a regional and ultimately global matching system, optimally one that is app based, establishing a virtual clearinghouse for workers who can be linked to job opportunities in advance of their movement across the Hemisphere and beyond.
The third dimension of our approach focused on stabilization and integration efforts in the region.
The unprecedented size of the massive exodus from Venezuela, the largest migrant movement of a single population in the Hemisphere’s history, has highlighted the criticality of this work.
Our partners throughout South America have stepped up to help absorb – and provide stability to – so many of these individuals.
There is a largely untold story happening in this region that is remarkable.
Over half of the Los Angeles Declaration partner countries have provided legal status and helped integrate more than 4.4 million Venezuelan migrants into their communities. And they continue to do so.
Four countries in South America – Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, and Peru – are hosting over 80 percent of the Venezuelan migrants within Latin America.
Colombia led the way by providing 10-year legal status to over two million migrants, most of whom are Venezuelan, and recently announced an expansion to include parents of migrant children.
Others have stepped up as well. Last month, Ecuador extended its regularization program to 200,000 additional migrants, enabling them to apply for formal jobs and fully integrate into their communities. Brazil has pioneered a one-of-a-kind policy that matches migrants’ skills with labor needs all across the country.
And we’ve been right there to support them. During this Administration, we have provided over $2.4 billion to support partner countries that are helping migrants as they put down roots, enroll their kids in school, and restart their lives in a new place.
Surveys indicate that those who have legal status and opportunities in the countries where they reside tend to stay put. In fact, the International Organization for Migration has reported that only about 1.2 percent of Venezuelans transiting the Darien Gap between June 2022 and June 2023 had a residency permit of some kind – demonstrating that legal status in a third country significantly reduces onward migration toward our border.
And the research also shows significant economic benefits of migrant integration for host countries. The International Monetary Fund estimated that integrating Venezuelan migrants could add 4.5 percent to host countries’ GDPs in the next decade. As just one example, in Bogota, the arrival of 600,000 Venezuelans migrants has created 9,000 formal businesses and generated 188,000 new jobs. 90 percent of working-age Venezuelans in Colombia are employed and Venezuelan migrants contributed over $500 million to the Colombian economy in 2022.
Building on his legacy as Vice President, President Biden has also been firmly committed since the beginning of his Presidency to supporting economic development and democratic governance throughout Latin America and the Caribbean in order to generate stability, economic opportunity and hope for the future.
We know, from years of experience, that individuals who are hopeful about their futures in their homelands are much more likely to remain there and much less likely to migrate. And Vice President Harris’s leadership in addressing the root causes of migration from Northern Central America has been a critical element of this effort.
During the Biden-Harris Administration, we have worked hard to craft a Hemispheric system of burden sharing that creates incentives for individual and collective action to manage 21st century migration flows.
Although we have made substantial progress, as with all complex challenges, especially at the intersection of foreign and domestic policy, there is more to be done.
We have sought to adapt existing tools and we have created new ones, including innovative frameworks like the Los Angeles Declaration, to disincentivize unlawful migration and incentivize pathways that create a safe and orderly flow to our borders.
If you take one thing away from these remarks, it should be that sustained success in this vital endeavor will require us to maintain strong ongoing partnerships with countries across the region and around the world.
