Thread by @KimWexlerMAJD

🔥🧵/1 In the corruption of our borders, many names have emerged as having played a direct role.

Let’s take a look at one whose part in the border crisis you may not have heard about:

💥JAKE SULLIVAN💥

Biden’s Executive Order 14010, issued in February 2021, is titled “Creating a Comprehensive Regional Framework to Address the Causes of Migration, to Manage Migration throughout North and Central America, and to Provide Safe and Orderly Processing of Asylum Seekers at the United States Border.”

Section 2 of the EO directs the “Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs” (also known as the National Security Advisor) to prepare two strategy documents:

(i) the United States Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration (the “Root Causes Strategy”); and

(ii) the United States Strategy for Collaborative Management of Migration in the Region (the “Collaborative Management Strategy”).

According to the White House Transition Project (2009), “ideally, the national security advisor serves as an honest broker of policy options for the president in the field of national security, rather than as an advocate for his or her own policy agenda.”

Read on to learn more about how Sullivan strategized to “manage” migration …

🧵/2 Per the Executive Order, the primary objectives of the Collaborative Management Strategy were to “manage” migration and to provide “safe and orderly processing of asylum seekers” — NOT to prevent or discourage mass numbers of undocumented people from approaching our borders, although there is some attention given to resettling migrants in countries close to their own home countries.

According to the EO, the Strategy “shall identify and prioritize actions to strengthen cooperative efforts to address migration flows, including by expanding and improving upon previous efforts to resettle throughout the region those migrants who qualify for humanitarian protection.”

“The Collaborative Management Strategy should focus on programs and infrastructure that facilitate access to protection and other lawful immigration avenues, in both the United States and partner countries, as close to migrants’ homes as possible.”

“To support the development of the Collaborative Management Strategy, the United States Government shall promptly begin consultations with civil society, the private sector, international organizations, and governments in the region, including the Government of Mexico.”

“These consultations should address … humanitarian assistance, including through expansion of shelter networks, to address the immediate needs of individuals who have fled their homes to seek protection elsewhere in the region.”

From the July 29, 2021 Collaborative Migration Management “Fact Sheet,” it is clear that the aim was to expand migration and create “LAWFUL PATHWAYS” to the United States, not to discourage or prevent illegal immigration.

The Fact Sheet explains that implementation of the Strategy would involve enlisting support from:

🔹governments in and outside the region

🔹international organizations

🔹civil society

🔹the private sector

🔹multilateral organizations

🔹international financial institutions

🔹members of U.S. Congress and their staff

🔹labor unions

(This is starting to look familiar…) 🤔

🧵/3 The 13-page Strategy document begins by acknowledging “the humanitarian situation in the Northern Triangle” (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) caused by “long-standing … violence, lack of employment opportunities and corruption” as well as more recent events like “the COVID-19 pandemic, recurrent droughts, and two hurricanes in November 2020” as predicates to launch “both immediate responses and a new, strategic approach for managing regional migration in the medium- to long-term.”

Note 1: With the possible exception of targeted violence, none of the above factors constitutes lawful grounds for asylum under U.S. or international law.

Note 2: President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, who took office in June 2019, has dramatically reduced violent crime in his country by reforming the criminal justice system.

🧵/4 The first objective of the Strategy is to reduce “irregular migration” which is defined by the UN International Organization for Migration as “the act of crossing borders without complying with all the legal administrative requirements for entry into the [country].”

The second objective is “promoting safe, orderly, and humane migration” by “expanding access to legal pathways.”

The Strategy claims that the U.S. has strong “interests” in reducing illegal border crossings and expanding “legal pathways.”

Note: In other words, the plan was to reduce illegal border crossings by either making them legal or making them appear to be legal. (Don’t believe me? Read on ….)

🧵/5 “This strategy does not seek to end migration. To the contrary — human mobility is part of the fabric and tradition of Central and North America. Instead, the Migration Strategy envisions that migration within and through Mexico and Central America would be by choice, and that fewer people would feel compelled to make that choice. It envisions more legal pathways available for those who choose to leave….”

🧵/6 Sullivan’s Strategy sets out eight concrete “Lines of Action” for the U.S. to pursue. The Lines of Action are megalomaniacal in scope, seeking to reform and financially support border management and migration throughout the region, albeit with the “collaboration” of the United Nations and relevant governments.

1. “Stabilize Populations with Acute Needs” — defined as coordinating with the United Nations and surging humanitarian aid to the Northern Triangle “given the COVID-19 pandemic, November 2020 hurricanes, and prolonged droughts”

2. “Expand Access to International Protection” (see below)

3. “Expand Access to Protection in Countries of Origin” — a focus on assisting Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who are homeless within their own countries

4. “Expand Third Country Labor Migration Programs While Improving Worker Protections” — such programs “allow individuals to find work opportunities and provide support for their families through formalized migration channels”

5. “Assist and Reintegrate Returned Persons”

(continued) …

🧵/7 “Lines of Action” (continued)

6. “Foster Secure and Humane Management of Borders” — involves working with governments “to build the region’s migration-focused departments and agencies to develop institutional capacity” as well as providing “support for their modernization of border infrastructure”

7. “Strengthen Regional Public Messaging on Migration” — the U.S. sought to take the lead on “messaging” to “share factual information” about migration policies in the region, “counter disinformation … discourage irregular migration and promote “safe, orderly and humane migration.”

“Partnerships with international organizations and other stakeholders can amplify these messages ….”

(continued) …

🧵/8 “Lines of Action” (continued)

8. “Expand Access to Lawful Pathways for Protection and Opportunity in the United States”

“The United States is committed to enhancing access to protection and opportunity in the United States. The United States is taking a number of steps to increase access to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) for Northern Triangle nationals. The United States is also examining parole options … and evaluating options to enhance access for Northern Triangle nationals to immigrant and non-immigrant visas to the United States….”

The Central American Minors (CAM) program was started in 2014 during the Obama administration and was designed to allow “young people with parents in the United States” to apply for asylum status from their home countries. The Trump administration phased the program out in 2018 because “the vast majority of individuals accessing the program were not eligible for refugee resettlement.”

The CAM program was revived by Biden and has been noted as one of the major driving forces behind the current child trafficking crisis due to poor planning and poor implementation of the program, as well as the lack of meaningful oversight.

🧵/9 “The Del Rio incident” in September 2021, in which some 15,000 Haitians moved from Brazil and Chile up to the Texas border, “was a wake-up call” writes Katie Tobin in a September 2024 report for the Carnegie Endowment.

“Migration trends were shifting, and old playbooks and policies would not be sufficient. There was growing consensus that a new, hemisphere-wide strategy was needed. Building one would require leaders to come together.”

The incident spurred Biden to have his national security team draft a regional migration pact involving the participation of Canada, Mexico and Colombia and the imprimatur of the UN Refugee agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Other countries joined in negotiations, and eventually a total of 22 Latin American and Caribbean nations adopted the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection.

carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/…

🧵/10 In July 2023, after meetings between Mexico’s President Lopez Obrador and a U.S. delegation, Sullivan announced the U.S. “is taking additional steps to expand access to safe, orderly, legal migration pathways. Today we are announcing our full support for an international multipurpose space that the Government of Mexico plans to establish in southern Mexico to offer new refugee and labor options ….”

🧵BONUS — How did Sullivan handle migrant caravans that threatened to surge the border at the beginning of Biden’s administration?

Did their approach set the tone for U.S.-Mexico relations for the rest of the Biden administration? Did it work? Or did it contribute to the crisis?

The UN’s squishily defined “lawful pathways” concept infected U.S. agencies like USCIS and DHS

h/t @truthteller_x1