Vice President Kamala Harris will welcome the president of Guatemala on Monday as part of her strategy to address the “root causes” of illegal immigration.

Harris and Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo will meet Monday afternoon inside the White House, after which the vice president will host an immigration-focused roundtable discussion that will be closed to the press.

To coincide with the visit, the White House announced an additional $1 billion in new private-sector commitments to the Central America Forward project, bringing the total of investments to $5.2 billion.

“During the visit, the leaders will take stock of the progress we have made to address the drivers of irregular migration, including creating good jobs, responsive governance, and opportunities for Guatemalans to invest in their own communities,” a release from the White House describing the meeting reads.

Harris will also announce that the United States is providing another $170 million for economic development and security assistance to Guatemala.

The effort is part of a mission Harris took on shortly after taking office to address the causes of migration from Central American countries, including Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. Republicans have derided the effort, dubbing Harris the “border czar” as illegal immigration continues to set new records under President Joe Biden.

The idea behind addressing the root causes is to make Guatemala and other nations more stable and prosperous to lessen the incentives for illegal immigration. To make that happen, the White House says it is on track to provide $4 billion in the region over four years.

That money will go to a wide range of initiatives, including programs to bolster the rule of law, promote the domestic economy through textile and “climate-smart” agricultural trade, support clean energy and infrastructure development, advance economic opportunities for women, and combat violence, among other things.

The Department of Homeland Security announced Friday it had just under 190,000 immigrant encounters in February, a new record for the month.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) said Harris is to blame for the surge.

“If Vice President Harris really wants to get to the root causes of this unprecedented border crisis, she should look in the mirror — doing so would be both far less costly and much more enlightening,” he said in a statement sent to the Washington Examiner. “This ‘root-causes’ nonsense is just meant to make unserious people sound like they’re trying to do something meaningful to end this crisis.”

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The White House also said it has issued 13,000 H-2 employment visas to Guatemalans, allowing them to work temporarily in the U.S., and issued more than 5,000 “invitations” for Guatemalans to
reunite with family living in the U.S.

Harris is meeting with Arevalo shortly after 2 p.m., with the roundtable taking place at 3:45.