Vice president Kamala Harris, on her first international trip to Guatemala, espoused the Biden administration’s immigration policy. After meeting with the Guatemalan president, she said during a press conference the goal of the U.S. is to help improve the lives of Guatemalans, to give them “hope at home.” For those who have been looking to the U.S. for hope and trekking to the border, she said, “Do not come. Do not come.”

Promises of task forces to end government corruption, and to combat human trafficking and drug smuggling offer little comfort to the people whose lives have been made so miserable and dangerous by the corruption and crime that they’d rather risk the long trek across Mexico to our southern border. They will come, regardless of the vice president’s warning.

Until Guatemala and other countries to the south are willing to clean up their problems and create hope for their people, there’s not much we can do for them. Our efforts may just feed the corruption that is so entrenched there.