“Prospective migrants tell us that they aren’t chasing an American dream. It’s a Guatemalan dream they’re after, but they need to go to the United States to attain it… Given the chance, farmers in communities nestled around picturesque Lake Atitlán would build ecotourist lodges that showcase Maya traditions and environmental stewardship. Agricultural workers living in the lush volcanic highlands of Huehuetenango are tired of just picking coffee; they aspire to roast, package and ship their beans directly to hipster cafes in Guatemala City, San Salvador and Los Angeles…

“Getting results in Guatemala requires investing in the economic and commercial scaffolding that the country’s entrepreneurial farmers desperately need, including access to land, fertilizer, water, roads, credit, technical assistance, broadband internet and the ability to sell their products directly to consumers… the United States needs to break a pattern in which foreign assistance is channeled through government contractors with too little transparency, too much overhead and scant connection to community priorities. We should seize the opportunity to work directly with local communities to fund sustainable development projects.”
Anita Isaacs and Jorge Morales Toj, New York Times

Critics note that “The current presidents of both Mexico and the U.S. came to office promising a safer world for migrants traversing this perilous landscape. So far, neither have delivered… April marked the deadliest month in Sonora in more than two decades. Just one day before the asylum-seekers marched [to protest Title 42], Mexican soldiers opened fire on suspected cartel members in Nogales in broad daylight…

“Two weeks before that, narco gunmen shot up a government helicopter with a .50 caliber sniper rifle near the municipality of Santa Ana. The following day saw reports of some 60 cartel fighters ambushing the Mexican military near the community of Cerro Cañedo; eight people were killed, including a Mexican soldier… the bottleneck caused by the Title 42 rule has fueled a rise in violence and extortion of migrants [in Mexico].”
Ryan Devereaux, The Intercept

Regarding the VP’s portfolio, “Harris will likely become the public face of a doomed effort to enact major voting-rights legislation that cannot be enacted without the filibuster reform Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema (with a few other Senate Democrats probably quietly abetting them) have made impossible. And even if conditions on the border improve (which is a development hardly within the full control of the U.S. government), Harris will be identified with an exceptionally fraught issue that divides Democrats and energizes Republicans…

“Thus, through no fault of her own, she may suffer in public perceptions, particularly as Republicans focus their fire on her as a riper target (and as an obviously easier object for racist and sexist contempt) than the hard-to-demonize Uncle Joe.”
Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine

“Fox News harangues [Harris] daily, in articles on its website and in tweets… She confronts the confines in which a vice president has to operate on top of the similar confines in which Black people and women in positions of power are often expected to operate. It’s a Goldilocks double or even triple whammy. Too strong a voice and you’re stepping outside of your place. Too soft a voice and you’re timidly failing to rise to the occasion…

“How sensitive to that is Biden, and how supportive? I don’t detect any carry-over of the tension between him and Harris in the Democratic presidential primary, but it’s important to remember that Biden’s model for the relationship between a vice president and a president is his with Barack Obama, and Obama didn’t nurture Biden’s political ambitions or set him up for a promotion. He did that for Hillary Clinton instead. This is one fraught, fascinating vice presidency.”
Frank Bruni, New York Times