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The
potential program would be targeted at people in the Northern
Triangle region of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, Roberta
Jacobson, the White House's southern border coordinator, told
Reuters in an interview, without saying who exactly would
receive cash.
Roughly 168,000 people were picked up by U.S. Border Patrol
agents at the U.S.-Mexico border in March, the highest monthly
tally since March 2001 and part of steadily increasing arrivals
in recent months.
"We're looking at all of the productive options to address both
the economic reasons people may be migrating, as well as the
protection and security reasons," Jacobson said.
She did not provide a detailed explanation of how a cash
transfer program would work.
"The one thing I can promise you is the U.S. government isn't
going to be handing out money or checks to people," Jacobson
said.
Jacobson said no decision has been made regarding whether to
prioritize sending vaccines to the Northern Triangle countries,
but said that President Joe Biden's administration would
consider how vaccines could help the countries' ailing
economies. She said the vaccine issue remains separate from
immigration-related discussions with the nations.
Jacobson will leave the White House at the end of April, White
House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a
statement on Friday, saying she had committed to the role for
the first 100 days of the new administration.
Biden in late March tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to lead
U.S. efforts with Mexico and Central America to address the
number of migrants heading north.
Central American countries have faced some of the longest waits
in the Americas to get their first vaccines. Frustrated by the
time it has taken, some regional governments have begun turning
to China and Russia for help, with increasing success.
Biden, who took office on Jan. 20, has called for $4 billion in
development aid to Central America over four years to address
underlying causes of migration. On Friday, the White House
requested $861 million from Congress for that effort in Biden's
first annual budget proposal. That would be a sharp increase
from the roughly $500 million in aid this year.
Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the U.S. House of
Representatives, criticized the idea of cash transfers.
"It’s insulting to the millions of Americans who are out of work
or facing despair in our country," he said in a statement Friday
evening.
A spokesman for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID),
which administers foreign aid, told Reuters in a statement that
it is already using cash transfers in programs "to help people
meet their basic needs" in the wake of severe hurricanes in
Central America in late 2020. USAID is considering expanding the
efforts going forward, the spokesman said.
The United States in the past has used the USAID's Office of
Transition Initiatives to fund work-for-cash programs in
post-conflict nations such as Colombia. Such programs can
include labor-intensive rural road-building projects.
Among the options for cash transfers would be to channel funds
to individuals through international or local non-governmental
organizations that would vet them, a person familiar with the
matter told Reuters.
Mexico has proposed similar cash transfer programs as an option
during recent meetings with U.S. envoys in Mexico City, a senior
Mexican official said. The Mexican government has piloted such
projects on a limited scale in Central America, modeled on cash
grants it gives to the young unemployed and small farmers, a key
pillar of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's domestic
welfare programs.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson and Matt Spetalnick in Washington;
Additional reporting by Frank Jack Daniel and Dave Graham in
Mexico City; Editing by Ross Colvin, Will Dunham, Aurora Ellis
and Leslie Adler)
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