Harris Blamed Migrant Crisis on Lack of Climate Adaptation

Vice President Kamala Harris once partly blamed inadequate "climate adaptation" for the massive influx of illegal immigrants into the U.S. from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, the Daily Caller reported Thursday.

"The citizens of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras are leaving their homes at alarming rates. But there's a fundamental truth behind that headline: People in the region do not want to leave their homes," Harris said on May 4, 2021, at the Washington Conference on the Americas, according to a White House transcript.

Her comments came two months after President Joe Biden tapped her to tackle the root causes of the immigration crisis.

"They do not want to leave the communities they have known their entire lives – the church they go to every Sunday, the park they take their children to, their friends, their family, their community," she said.

Harris at the time said she believed those migrants "leave only when they feel they must" because their homes were washed away by hurricanes, or people whose sons were threatened by drug cartels, people whose daughters were targeted by drug traffickers, "people who do not have enough to eat. People who are out of work. People who have lost hope."

"We want to help people find hope at home," she added. "And so, we are focused on addressing both the acute factors and the root causes of migration. I believe this is an important distinction. We must focus on both, First, the acute factors: the catastrophes that are causing people to leave right now. The hurricanes, the pandemic, the drought, and extreme food insecurity.

"And then there are the longstanding issues, the root causes. And I'm thinking of corruption, violence and poverty, a lack of economic opportunity, the lack of climate adaptation and climate resilience, the lack of good governance."

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