“For all the differences between Barack Obama’s and Donald Trump’s approaches to immigration, both administrations tried to discourage immigration from Central America. Blinken appears poised to continue that under Biden: The reason he wants to restore aid to Northern Triangle nations is to encourage would-be migrants to stay home. As The New York Timesputs it, the point is “to persuade migrants that they will be safer and better off remaining home.”
That was the Obama approach. In those days, then–Vice President Biden helped broker a bipartisan deal to send $750 million in aid to those countries, hoping to stem the outflow of migrants by spurring economic improvement, rooting out corruption, and cracking down on violent crime.
“Obviously, the problems in those countries when it comes to crime and gang violence, drugs, lack of economic opportunity, among other things, are huge drivers,” Blinken said in a July interview with the Hudson Institute. “The idea that someone wakes up in the morning and says, ‘Gee, wouldn’t it be great fun today to give up everything I know, where I live, my family, my friends, my comfort and go to someplace that may not want me where I may not even know the language or have family or friends. Wouldn’t that be a great thing to do?'”
But did the aid package really change that calculation? According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Obama’s tenure saw the deportation of around 3 million people, outpacing the number under President George W. Bush. And a majority of those deportees came from the Northern Triangle.
“I doubt the Biden administration will try to make migration from Central America easier,” says Stephen Yale-Loehr, immigration law attorney and professor at Cornell University. “At most they hope to manage it better.””