Vice President Harris will visit Honduras for inauguration of Xiomara Castro
By Maegan Vazquez and Sam Fossum, CNN
Vice President Kamala Harris will lead the US delegation to Honduras attending the inauguration of President-elect Xiomara Castro later this month, according to the White House.
“The Vice President’s visit will further the commitment she and President-elect Castro made during their December 10 phone call to deepen the partnership between the United States and Honduras and work together to advance economic growth, combat corruption, and address the root causes of migration,” said Sabrina Singh, deputy press secretary for the vice president, in a statement.
The delegation for Castro’s inauguration includes US Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power and California’s Democratic Rep. Raul Ruiz. Diplomats in the delegation include Jose Fernandez, the under secretary for economic growth, energy and the environment at the State Department; Brian Nichols, the State Department’s assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs; and Colleen Hoey, the charge d’affaires at the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa.
Castro, a former first lady whose husband was ousted in a coup 12 years ago, is set to become the first female president of Honduras. The self-proclaimed democratic socialist had run twice before her presidential win this past fall.
Harris has been tapped by President Joe Biden to oversee diplomatic efforts in the Northern Triangle to address immigration, but it’s not clear what policy-related efforts she’ll undertake while in Honduras.
In her most recent public efforts in the diplomatic role, the vice president announced a new slate of commitments from the private sector to invest in the Northern Triangle, as part of its attempts to address the root causes of migration from the region by promoting economic opportunity.
The Honduras visit will mark Harris’ second visit to the Northern Triangle since taking office. In June, the vice president visited Guatemala and Mexico.
Coverage garnered of the Guatamala and Mexico trip this past summer was dominated by the vice president’s rocky response to questions about whether she would visit the southern border of the US. But later in June, Harris visited the US-Mexico border, where she toured an El Paso central processing center and a US Customs and Border Protection facility.
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CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this report.
