An essential morning newsletter briefing for leaders in the nation’s capital.
with research by Tobi Raji Pogo Pin Sizes
An essential morning newsletter briefing for leaders in the nation’s capital.
Good morning, Early Birds. Will jets shoot down another mysterious flying object today? Place your bets, send your tips: earlytips@washpost.com. Thanks for waking up with us.
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In today’s edition … Can Vice President Harris take credit for plunging migration from Central America? … Congressional Hispanic Caucus to discuss Nanette Barragán’s leadership today … What we’re watching: Harris goes to Munich this week … Former FBI agent’s side work puts bureau under new scrutiny … As red states target Black history lessons, blue states embrace them … former senator Rob Portman has a new job … but first …
The Biden administration is facing questions from lawmakers in both parties about the U.S. military shooting several objects out of the sky over the weekend.
The first question is simple: What is going on?!
It’s not every weekend that military jets are scrambled to shoot down some kind of flying object. The maneuvers followed the downing of an apparent Chinese surveillance balloon on Feb. 4 off the South Carolina coast, but the origin of the recent downed aerial objects has not been determined.
First the facts: Three more unknown aerial objects were shot down by the U.S. military over the weekend. The latest one, over Lake Huron, “was flying over Michigan’s upper peninsula at about 20,000 feet — an altitude and path that raised concerns about potential interference with commercial aviation,” our colleagues Anne E. Marimow, Mark Johnson and Alex Horton report.
The Minnesota National Guard F-16s and pilots, flying out of the Wisconsin National Guard’s Truax Airfield, used AIM9 Sidewinder missiles to shoot down the object, according to a Democratic aide to Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), chair of the Homeland Security Committee.
Two objects were also shot down Friday, one near the North Slope of Alaska and another over Canada’s Yukon territory.
The new incidents happened over the weekend with Congress scattered, so there have been no formal briefings by the administration for lawmakers since object Nos. 2, 3 and 4 were shot down.
But administration officials at the Defense Department, Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Homeland Security have been in touch with relevant lawmakers from affected states, including Peters, Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Rep. Matthew M. Rosendale (R-Mont.), Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) and Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.). Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on ABC’s “This Week” that he spoke with national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
Lawmakers want to know:
Tester, who chairs the Appropriations Committee’s defense panel, is leading the effort to find out why the administration is just now becoming aware of the objects in U.S. airspace.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, is leading the effort to find out what American technology foreign governments may be using in these devices.
The answers to the questions above will inevitably lead to more questions. Expect more briefings and probably hearings in the coming weeks.
When President Biden tasked Vice President Harris not long after taking office with stemming migration from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to the U.S.-Mexico border, it was viewed as a tough assignment.
Immigration from the three countries — sometimes known as the Northern Triangle — was surging. “There’s no question this one is high-risk, high-reward,” Julián Castro, a former housing and urban development secretary, told The Post at the time.
But in the nearly two years since Biden tapped Harris, the number of migrants from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras arriving at the border has fallen dramatically. The number has plunged 71 percent since August 2021 — “the month after we launched our strategies,” as a senior administration official said last week on call to update reporters on Harris’s work.
An effort started by Harris has secured more than $4.2 billion in private-sector commitments to invest in the three countries from companies such as Columbia Sportswear, Nestlé and Target, including nearly $1 billion announced last week. The administration has also stepped up aid to the region and made it easier for some Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans to come to the U.S. legally.
But migration experts say Harris probably can’t take much credit for the decline.
Much of the private-sector investment in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras that Harris helped secure won’t be made for years. And the administration’s efforts are only one factor in the push and pull that drives migrants to leave home. Inter-American Development Bank researchers found, for instance, that droughts and extreme temperatures have helped drive recent migration from El Salvador.
“Migration patterns follow their own logic,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute. While “the efforts Vice President Harris has led are certainly helpful for the long term,” he added, they’re unlikely to be driving the short-term decline.
Harris has been cautious about claiming any credit. “We know there is a complex set of interconnected issues which drive people to migrate,” a White House official wrote in an email when asked how much — if any — of the decline in migration Harris attributes to her work. “There is a lot of work underway to address all these issues, and we are pleased to be seeing positive trends.”
One Biden administration effort that might be helping to cut migration numbers from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras in the short term: more visas allowing workers from those countries to come to the United States temporarily.
The administration announced in 2021 that it would make 6,500 additional H-2B visas available for workers from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti. It upped the number to 20,000 for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1, 2022.
The numbers aren’t huge, considering that nearly 27,000 migrants from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras were stopped at the border in January alone. But it echoes a strategy that helped reduce the number of Mexicans crossing the border illegally.
“It’s not going to be a huge impact, but any decrease is a decrease,” said Cris Ramón, an independent immigration consultant. “I think that’s what the administration’s looking for.”
Some lawmakers who have an interest in Central America, meanwhile, said that while they support Harris’s efforts, they want to see the administration shift its focus.
“While I appreciate the Vice President’s efforts to draw attention to the region, by generating more corporate investment, it is no substitute for the necessary democracy-building and anti-corruption efforts that are so desperately needed,” Rep. Norma J. Torres (D-Calif.), who was born in Guatemala, said in a statement to The Early. “We must support local activists and civic leaders, including imprisoned journalists like José Rubén Zamora, working to establish the rule of law and expose corruption at the highest levels of government.”
Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), who co-chairs the Congressional Central America Caucus with Torres, urged the administration to prioritize securing the border in a statement: “While it is important to address the root causes of this record illegal immigration, you can’t stop the flood without plugging up the hole in the dam first.”
Congressional Hispanic Caucus to discuss Barragán’s leadership today
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus will meet today (virtually because the House is in recess) to discuss Rep. Nanette Barragán’s (D-Calif.) leadership of the group and her firing of its executive director, Jacky Usyk, just one month into the job, according to two Democratic aides familiar with the scheduling of the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the meeting has not been made public. One of those aides said that Barragán will present a timeline of events that led to Usyk’s ouster in an attempt to defend the decision.
Barragán has been accused of mismanagement amid long-standing concerns about her leadership style and treatment of staffers, as Leigh Ann and Marianna Sotomayor reported over the weekend.
The CHC now has no staffers on its typical five-person payroll after all of them quit or found new jobs, leaving Barragán unable to recruit new talent, according to numerous lawmakers and staffers.
The lack of a staff could hamper the CHC’s growing influence within the Democratic caucus, especially as more Hispanic Democrats have entered the ranks. Previous leaders had worked to make the group a core decision-making bloc on Capitol Hill.
At the White House:
The House is out this week and next week. (You can’t work all the time.) The Senate is in.
Under the microscope: Retired FBI official Charles McGonigal, 54, was indicted in a federal court in January on charges of money laundering, violating U.S. sanctions and making false statements, stemming in part from his alleged ties to an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, our colleagues Shane Harris, Rosalind S. Helderman and Catherine Belton write. “A 22-year member of the bureau, McGonigal was the top spy hunter in a city crawling with foreign agents and one of the most powerful officials in federal law enforcement.”
Education wars: “Even as lessons on Black history draw complaints from Republican governors, who argue the instruction is ideological, several blue states are moving in the opposite direction — mandating classes in African American, Latino and Puerto Rican studies — and setting up a uniquely American division over how we teach our past,” per our colleague Hannah Natanson.
Retired senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) has found a new job, and it’s not as a lobbyist. He’ll be a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank. His focus areas: free-trade expansion, U.S.-China relations, U.S.-Russia relations, the conflict in Europe, U.S. budget and entitlement reform, worker training, retirement security and other issues.
From across the web:
Shine bright like a[n unidentified flying object]
unidentified flying objects entering u.s. airspace pic.twitter.com/0SbW5MSH60
Hay Tester Probe Thanks for reading. You can also follow us on Twitter: @theodoricmeyer and @LACaldwellDC.