Immigration Successes

With Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign underway, the GOP is accelerating its lies about her

work as Vice President. Though responsibility for the southern border rests with the

Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, they call Harris a failed

“Border Czar,” deliberately mischaracterizing her early presidential assignment – to address the

root causes of migration – while obscuring her accomplishments.

As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on 6/12/24, VP Harris’ 2021 “Call to Action” has

triggered major commitments from dozens of companies (including Columbia Sportswear,

Target and Gap) to buy items formerly produced in China from factories in Central America’s

Northern Triangle (Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador), creating thousands of jobs and

enabling prospective migrants stay home. As a top Columbia executive stated to the Journal

Sentinel, “Americans who are worried about the crisis at the U.S. southern border ought to care

about creating opportunities in the Northern Triangle.”

In 2023, VP Harris also launched “Central America Forward,” a collaboration with the nonprofit

Partnership for Central America that has connected these countries to the digital economy,

expanded small business financing and provided worker training and education.

While the GOP has blocked each Biden bill on immigration, VP Harris’ work is part of a smart,

humane, long-term strategy that – if allowed to continue – will produce lasting and increasingly

impactful results. As the National Council of Textile Organizations CEO told the Journal Sentinel,

this kind of approach “is not an abstract government program. It’s real and it’s working.

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