DHS secretary, Honduran president to tour border

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will host Honduran President Xiomara Castro in McAllen, Texas, on Saturday to discuss migration and tour the border.

The visit will highlight improved relations between the United States and Honduras, which is a key stop on the migrant trail from South America and a source country for irregular migration.

Apprehensions of Honduran nationals by U.S. border authorities peaked in 2021, the year before Castro took office as president of the Central American country.

In fiscal 2021, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Border Patrol officials encountered 319,324 Hondurans, but that number dropped to 213,023 in fiscal 2022 and stands at 151,236 with two months left to be reported in fiscal 2023.

The reduction in Honduran emigration is in part due to political change in the country since Castro’s inauguration in January 2022.

Conditions in Honduras decayed under Castro’s predecessor, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was extradited to the United States on drug smuggling charges shortly after leaving office.

Hernández was first elected in 2014 and reelected in 2017 in an election the Trump administration certified, though the Organization of American States called the election process “of low technical quality and lacking in integrity.”

At the time, Hernández was seen as a key U.S. ally on regional migration and drug interdiction, though his violent crackdowns contributed to Honduran emigration and he himself is now on trial for drug trafficking.

The Biden administration was quick to embrace Castro — Vice President Kamala Harris attended her inauguration at Tegucigalpa’s national soccer stadium and later announced nearly $2 billion in Central American investments to help reduce migration.

Castro’s visit to the border, where she and Mayorkas are about 10 times more likely to encounter migrants from other countries than from Honduras, will also be an opportunity for the administration to tout Harris’s long-term investment strategy.