SAN ANTONIO – Vice President Kamala Harris arrives in Mexico and Guatemala next week for her first foreign diplomatic visit, and an expert on both countries said don’t expect the flow of migrants at the border to stop in the near future.
“It’s going to take much more than one visit to really to chip away at the long term, fundamental problems behind the issue of migration,” said Catherine Nolan-Ferrell, Ph.D., an associate professor of history at UTSA.
Nolan-Ferrell said Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, known as the Golden Triangle, have had a litany of problems, including hurricanes, volcanoes, poverty, corruption and violence.
But Nolan-Ferrell said the vice president must recognize the need for humility in her approach.
Going back as far as the 1950′s, she said, “We have such a legacy of intervention and imperialism.”
“Us going in and saying, you need to do X, Y and Z is never going to work,” Nolan-Ferrell said. “We’re not going to be able to solve the problem by just going in there and telling people you need to do the right thing.”
Nolan-Ferrell said Harris’ offer of humanitarian aid and encouraging U.S. businesses to invest in those countries are welcomed, but she said even then, corruption could be a factor.
Nolan-Ferrell said she wonders if those in power within those countries will try to manage or control those resources.
“The entrenched elites, the ones who are very much involved in corruption and the ones who are very much involved in maintaining the status quo, they don’t want to change,” she said.
Nolan-Ferrell said so far, the U.S. “keeps supporting those elites.”
Having consulted with experts like Nolan-Ferrell, Harris said she’ll have “very frank and honest conversations about the need to address corruption, address crime, violence, and in particular, against some of the most vulnerable populations in the country.”
Difficult conversations to say the least, said Nolan-Ferrell, that are the root cause of people leaving for the United States.
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