{"id":116788,"date":"2021-03-25T12:12:42","date_gmt":"2021-03-25T19:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.46.6.243\/?p=116788"},"modified":"2021-03-25T12:12:42","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T19:12:42","slug":"president-biden-and-vice-president-harris-in-a-meeting-on-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=116788","title":{"rendered":"President Biden and Vice President Harris in a Meeting on Immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Yesterday President Biden put solving the immigration issue on VP Harris&#8217;s to do list.  &#8220;Well folks, today I have two announcements to make.  One, is we\u2019ve got ourselves a Secretary.  Xavier, welcome. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dailytide.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Fullscreen-capture-3252021-120429-PM.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"362\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-7871\" \/> <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7XXcSZbk4UQ\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>SECRETARY BECERRA:  Thank you, Mr. President.<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  Thanks for being willing to do this, and I really appreciate.  And also today, I\u2019ve \u2014 I said when we became a team and got elected, that the Vice President was going to be the last person in the room.  She didn\u2019t realize that means she gets every assignment.  (Laughs.) <\/p>\n<p>But the Vice President and I, and all of us here, have been working very hard to \u2014 to pass the legislation that \u2014 that is going to beat this virus, as well as get people back to work and change their prospects.  And so, she\u2019s traveling all over the country working that.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to that, there\u2019s about five other major things she\u2019s handling, but I\u2019ve asked her, the VP, today \u2014 because she\u2019s the most qualified person to do it \u2014 to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and the countries that help \u2014 are going to need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border.<\/p>\n<p>And, you know, back when I was Vice President, I got a similar assignment, but one of the things we did was we made sure that we got a bipartisan agreement with Democrats and Republicans to provide over $700 million to the countries in the Northern Triangle to determine the best way to keep people from coming is keep them from wanting to leave.<\/p>\n<p>And the reason why so many people were leaving, we learned, was that not only gang violence and trafficking and cartels, but natural disasters, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes.  And so it\u2019s not like someone sits around a hand-hewnen [sic] \u2014 hand-hewn table somewhere in Guatemala and says, \u201cI\u2019ve got a great idea:  Let\u2019s sell everything we have, give the money to a coyote, have him take our kids or us to the border of America, take us across, leave us in the desert.  We don\u2019t speak the language.  Won\u2019t that be fun?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One of the ways we learned is that if you deal with the problems in country, it benefits everyone.  It benefits us, it benefits the people, and it grows the economies there.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, the last administration eliminated that funding \u2014 did not engage in it, did not use it \u2014 even though there was over $700 million to help get this done.  We\u2019re reinstituting that program.  And there are \u2014 as I said, there are many factors as to why people leave in the first place. <\/p>\n<p>But this is \u2014 this is the \u2014 the source of one of the reasons why we\u2019ve had such a \u2014 before we took office, in the midst of the last administration\u2019s somewhat draconian policies of separating children from their parents, et cetera, what happened was that we \u2014 we found that there were a serious spike in the number of people heading to the southern border, even in the midst of that.  And as \u2014 as Alejandro can tell you, is that was because there were serious natural disasters that occurred in those countries.  They were coming north, and we did nothing to do any \u2014 much about it. <\/p>\n<p>So this new surge we\u2019re dealing with now started with the last administration, but it\u2019s our responsibility to deal with it humanely and to \u2014 and to stop what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n<p>And so, this increase has been consequential, but the Vice President has agreed \u2014 among the multiple other things that I have her leading \u2014 and I appreciate it \u2014 agreed to lead our diplomatic effort and work with those nations to accept re- \u2014 the returnees, and enhance migration enforcement at their borders \u2014 at their borders.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re already talking with Mexico about that; she\u2019s already done that.  We\u2019re going to be dealing with a full team now that we have to be able to deal with the problem here at home, but also to deal with it now in terms of in country. <\/p>\n<p>And I can think of nobody who \u2014 who is better qualified to do this than a former \u2014 this is a woman who ran the second-largest attorney general\u2019s office in America \u2014 after the U.S. \u2014 after the United States Attorney General \u2014 in the state of California, and has done a great deal upholding human rights, but also fighting organized crime in the process. <\/p>\n<p>So it\u2019s not her full responsibility and job, but she\u2019s leading the effort because I think the best thing to do is to put someone who, when he or she speaks, they don\u2019t have to wonder about is that where the President is.  When she speaks, she speaks for me.  Doesn\u2019t have to check with me.  She knows what she\u2019s doing, and I hope we can move this along. <\/p>\n<p>But \u2014 so, Madam Vice President, thank you.  I gave you a tough job, and you\u2019re smiling, but there\u2019s no one better capable of trying to organize this for us.<\/p>\n<p>THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, thank you, Mr. President and for having the confidence in me.  And there\u2019s no question that this is a challenging situation.  As the President has said, there are many factors that lead precedent 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 \u2014 because we can chew gum and walk at the same time \u2014 must address the root causes that \u2014 that cause people to make the trek, as the President has described, to come here. <\/p>\n<p>And I look forward to engaging in diplomacy with government, with private sector, with civil society, and \u2014 and the leaders of each in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to strengthen democracy and the rule of law, and ensure shared prosperity in the region. <\/p>\n<p>We will collaborate with Mexico and other countries throughout the Western hemisphere.  And as part of this effort, we expect that we will have collaborative relationships to accomplish the goals the President has and that we share. <\/p>\n<p>I also look forward to working with members of the Congress who, I think, share our perspective on the need to address root causes for the migration that we\u2019ve been seeing.  And needless to say, the work will not be easy, but it is important work.  It is work that we demand \u2014 and the people of our countries, I believe, need \u2014 to help stem the tide that we have seen. <\/p>\n<p>So thank you, Mr. President, for your confidence.  Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  Well, thank you for willing to do it.  Now we\u2019re going to get down to business here.  And, Ron, who am I turning this over to?&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Yesterday President Biden put solving the immigration issue on VP Harris&#8217;s to do list. &#8220;Well folks, today I have two announcements to make. One, is we\u2019ve got ourselves a Secretary. Xavier, welcome. SECRETARY BECERRA: Thank you, Mr. President. THE PRESIDENT: Thanks for being willing to do this, and I really appreciate. And also today, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":116789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Fullscreen-capture-3252021-120429-PM.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/116789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}