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This week Vice President Kamala Harris visited Guatemala and Mexico to discuss those countries key issues including immigration, corruption, and economic development.

While in Guatemala, Harris had a clear message to migrants who were thinking of coming to the United States.

I want to be clear to folks in this region that are making that dangerous track to the United States-Mexico border. Do not come. Do not come, Harris said.

The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border. And I believe if you come to our border you will be turned back, she said in a press conference on Monday with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei.

Immediately after her speech, immigration advocacy groups and officials called out Harris and the Biden administration for their Trump-like rhetoric and policies.

In an interview with the Signal, Chief Advocacy Officer at The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) Erika Andiola said she was disheartened after hearing Harriss speech.

It is time to use their power and to really follow their promises they have made to the immigrant community and not be afraid of the Republican party and their base, Andiola said.

Andiola said it is the responsibility of the government to create better systems and safer conditions for families and children seeking asylum at the border.

We are not advocating for more detention for children, we want safer places and an expedited way for these kids to be reunited with their families, Andiola said.

Diana Martinez, co-founder of the Coalition to End Child Detention in El Paso (CECD) called Vice President Harris comments tone deaf.

Its not addressing the reasons why theyre coming theyre coming because theyre running away from a corrupt government theyre running away from violence, Martinez said. Im sure they would want to stay at home if they could, but staying there is not an option to save the lives of their children.

Andiola, Martinez, and others highlighted how former administrations created foreign policy that led to the destruction in many Central American and Latinx countries including Guatemala.

The violence that goes on there is rooted in US foreign policy so to say that to people in Guatemala is like saying put up with the abuse and violence, Martinez said. Asylum is a right, it is not illegal.

New York House Representative. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also responded to Harris comments tweeting, this is disappointing to see. First seeking asylum at any US border is a 100% legal method of arrival. Second, the US spent decades contributing to regime change and destabilization in Latin America. We cant help set someones house on fire and then blame them for fleeing.

In May, Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott issued an order to remove licenses from childcare facilities who are housing unaccompanied migrant children.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services responded to Abbotts order threatening to sue the governor, but then issued a statement telling facilities that are housing unaccompanied migrant children to wind-down operations.

As organizers, Andiola and Martinez are fighting to end child detention centers at the border altogether, but want better conditions for the children in the meantime.

Both said Abbotts policies are not helping, but instead creating an environment of fear in Texas.

Hes not doing this out of the kindness of his heart because he cares about migrant children, Andiola said. Its important as a country that we move forward with reimagining and recreating the way we welcome children so that they are not detained for such a long period of time and in conditions that are not safe physically and mentally.

In El Paso, Martinez said organizers and sponsors have no access to unaccompanied migrant children in Fort Bliss, an army base housing migrant children, and only learn about the conditions from leakers.

Before 2019, I could get on base and all you needed was proper insurance and registration, and I was able to get on base regularly now you can only get on the base if someone you know signs you in, Martinez said. Many of the children what they ask for in Fort Bliss is for clean underwear and they go without clean underwear for 2 to 3 weeks.

Martinez said they want transparency between the government and the community about how long the children are being held and what conditions they are living in.

We should be able to tell these children that they are loved, not alone and they will see their families soon, Martinez said. And to give them a place where they feel safe, that is temporary and for these to not be run by corporations. We should not profit off of pain.

Andiola also said these unaccompanied migrant children are only wanting a better life and also highlighted that seeking asylum in the U.S. is not illegal.

Children when they live in poverty they grow up feeling this responsibility that they have to help their families, Andiola said. At the end of the day they are children and to just say no and do everything the governor is doing to ensure we turn them away is just completely heartless and we are not going to stand for that.

The White House/ Wikimedia Commons

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Immigration advocacy organizations call out the Biden administration for their shift on immigration reform at the border. - The Texas Signal

WESLACO, Texas Sergio Contreras, president and CEO of the Rio Grande Valley Partnership, is one of a number of top business leaders across Texas to call for comprehensive immigration reform.

RGVP is a member of FWD.us,a bipartisan political organization that believes Americas families, communities, and economy thrive when more individuals are able to achieve their full potential.

For too long, the group says, the United States broken immigration and criminal justice systems have locked too many people out of the American dream.

Founded by leaders in the technology and business communities, FWD.us says it is seeking to grow and galvanize political support to break through partisan gridlock and achieve meaningful reforms.

Together, the group states, it can move America forward.

Contreras said: The RGV Partnership is a catalyst for prosperity in the Rio Grande Valley unifying stakeholders in the spirit of collaboration and regional progress and aims to be an influential advocate. This mission is extended through our partnership with FWD.us. Today, our nations immigration system is beyond broken and needs a unified front across leaders at the federal and state level to get the job done. More than ever, we need an immigration system that will benefit all workers, farmers, ranchers and businesses across Texas, especially in the Rio Grande Valley.

Contreras made his comments as FWD.us announced an expansion of its work to support bipartisan immigration reform through continued partnerships with Texas business organizations and trade associations.

The announcement comes on the heels of the U.S. House of Representatives passing both the Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act to create a pathway to citizenship for certain undocumented individuals and their families.

Contreras said the partnerships FWD.us is building will include a variety of engagements to highlight the need for bipartisan immigration reform in Texas and across the nation, including public forums, press events, association roundtables, and joint outreach to elected officials.

Texas immigrant community is critical to our states COVID-19 response efforts and overall economic success. Major sectors of our states economy, including agriculture, food and beverage, energy, and real estate, are fueled by the contributions of immigrants, who are driving innovation, creating American jobs, and boosting economic growth, FWD.us said, in a news release.

Today, immigrant Texans contribute billions in tax revenue at the federal, state, and local levels, and create millions of jobs for American workers. However, decades of inaction on immigration policies has hindered our states economic growth while preventing millions of immigrants from contributing their full potential.

Here are the comments of various leaders within FWD.us:

FWD.us is excited to continue expanding our immigration work in Texas, especially through these crucial partnerships. Immigration is critical to the economic success of Texas, and to our states standing as a leading global economy. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, Texas immigrants including undocumented individuals have remained vital to our states essential workforce, filling roles in industries from healthcare to agriculture, and their continued contributions are needed for a full economic recovery. We have an enormous opportunity to continue building momentum in Congress around bipartisan immigration reform bills and at the state level. By working with local business leaders, we can further emphasize the significant impact immigration has on our state and broader economy to drive meaningful reform in the near future.

The innovative and entrepreneurial spirit championed by immigrant communities is vital to Houstons success. Today, Houstons more than 280,000 undocumented essential workers are critical to our states COVID-19 response efforts and are helping fuel our economic recovery. These are workers in industries from farming to healthcare, working to ensure our businesses and communities are able to make it through this global health crisis. We look forward to our partnership with FWD.us to advance immigration policies that will improve our economy and communities.

With more than 1.7 million undocumented immigrants in Texas, including 300,000 undocumented essential workers in the DFW area, immigrants are vital to Texas economy and are integral to the fabric of our communities. Today, we have a unique opportunity to get sound, bipartisan immigration reforms across the finish line to better support our immigrant communities and industries they contribute to. Especially as we continue to rebuild from the economic downturn brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, it is time for our leaders at the state and federal level to recognize the immense contributions and positive impact of immigration in Texas. We look forward to doing just that through this continued partnership with FWD.us.

As home to the second largest immigrant population in the U.S., Texans understand just how significant the contributions of immigrants are to economic growth, job creation, innovation, cultural diversity, and beyond. This is especially seen in the restaurant industry, which has long been supported by foreign-born individuals who are integral to the future success of businesses and the broader economy. With an estimated 24 percent of restaurant workers being born in foreign countries, their dedication to the industry and to keeping Americans fed, especially through the coronavirus pandemic, has been unmatched. We are excited to build our partnership with FWD.us to support immigrants and their families as we work towards bipartisan, commonsense immigration reform.

A cumbersome immigration system has been a hurdle to the success of Texas businesses. The investment immigrants make in our state is sizable, both financially and socially, and their willingness to persevere has been shown time and time again most notably on the front lines of the pandemic. In fact, immigrants account for 24% of our overall essential COVID-19 response workforce, including health care workers, sanitation workers, agriculture workers, and more. Theyre reinforcing different sectors of the economy at a time when every industry is in need of support. More than ever, we need a new approach to immigration reform, and are excited to work on this through our growing partnership with FWD.us to find solutions that meet Texans needs.

Immigration has been an integral part of Texas past and is key to its future, and now is the time for Congress to develop a bipartisan solution that provides durable protection for Dreamers with a path to citizenship. If these young immigrants were removed, it would result in an annual GDP loss of $6.1 billion for the Lone Star State and remove a key component of Texas workforce. But more importantly, these young men and women are our neighbors, friends and co-workers who have only known the United States as their home, and the Texas Association of Business stands ready to work with its federal representatives to pass immigration reform.

A stronger immigration system will enable Texas foreign-born workforce to supplement our labor needs and power our states economy. In fact, more than half of the landscaping industry in Texas today is comprised of foreign-born individuals. However, our nations crumbling immigration system often fails those who seek to build a new life for themselves and their families here in the U.S. As Congress works advance legislation such as the bipartisan Farm Workforce Modernization Act to support undocumented individuals and their families who are vital to the agriculture workforce, more can and must be done to ensure Texas immigrants can contribute to their fullest ability. With FWD.us, we look forward to changing the conversation to prioritize an immigration system that benefits all Texans.

Producing quality journalism is not cheap. The coronavirus has resulted in falling revenues across the newsrooms of the United States. However, The Rio Grande Guardian is committed to producing quality news reporting on the issues that matter to border residents. The support of our members is vital in ensuring our mission gets fulfilled.

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Contreras: We need an immigration system that benefits all workers, farmers, ranchers and businesses - Rio Grande Guardian

Brooks County Sheriff Martinez said there is a solution to this problem but it does not involve more border walls.

BROOKS COUNTY, Texas The Coastal Bend may not have any international borders, but on a daily basis, local law enforcement are kept extremely busy.

41 immigrants have been found dead in the brush country of South Texas this year, Sheriff of Brooks County Benny Martinez told 3News.

"We picked up number 41. He was sitting underneath the tree, so we just secured the body and he was still in tact," Martinez said.

"Most of the time, they're out there more than four days," Brooks County Deputy Jose Lemus said. "They don't have no water, no food. They just give up."

Almost on a day-to-day basis, the Brooks County Sheriff's Department have their work cut out for them because there are so many people trying to get north of the Sarita checkpoint without documentation, and risking their own lives to do it.

"There was a time last month during one of my shifts, I would get two bodies each day of my shift," Lemus said.

Sheriff Martinez said there is a solution to this problem but it does not involve more border walls, because that won't stop people from coming in. Martinez said the fix needs to start from deeper.

"The issue is that we're kind of staying away from is 'immigration reform.' It has to be that. That will minimize all this death, it will minimize everything," Martinez said. "As you mentioned earlier, the fact that it takes so long. I have a friend of mine that's still in the process. It's been 25-30 years now."

Martinez said one life lost is too many.

"Every single person that we pick up, every single body has a story to it. We'll never know that story."

For the latest updates on coronavirus in the Coastal Bend, click here.

More from 3News on KIIITV.com:

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Sheriff: 41 immigrants have been found dead in Coastal Bend brush country this year - KIIITV.com

For nine years, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA, has protected people illegally brought to the U.S. as children.

Sunflower Community Action, a nonprofit in Wichita that fights for racial and economic equity, is hosting a DACA Cumple 9, or DACA Turns 9, celebration on Tuesday. It will be nine years to the date that former President Barack Obama signed DACA into law in 2012.

From 4 to 7 p.m., people can come to the Evergreen Recreational Center and enjoy music, food, games and Latin dancing.

However, Yeni Telles, the community organizer for Sunflower, says theres more to the event than just a celebration.

We also want to bring awareness to the community of the need of the passage of the Dream and Promise Act, which is at the Senate at this moment, Telles said. And we just need the support of the community, the state and our leaders.

The Dream and Promise Act would provide steps for Dreamers to become citizens. Under DACA, Dreamers have no such path. They have to renew their credentials every two years.

Esmeralda Tovar-Mora is a Dreamer in Hutchinson. She says she arrived in the U.S. when she was 18 months old. Now, she works as a case manager at a mental health center. She says her fourth DACA renewal is coming up this year.

The Trump administration suspended DACA, and no one could apply for or renew their protection. President Joe Biden has since revived it.

Obviously, the past four years have made it really clear just how tenuous those protections are, Tovar-Mora said. It's always in the back of your mind.

It's a weight that you always carry on your shoulders. And I feel like I need a chiropractor from that.

The instability is why Tovar-Mora stresses the need for legislation leading to citizenship for Dreamers and immigration reform for all migrants. Both Tovar-Mora and Telles said they want the community to see immigrants as humans first and to let compassion guide the way toward that reform.

Personally, growing up, if I didn't tell you, nobody knew the difference, Tovar-Mora said. I walked like them, I talked like them, I pledged allegiance to the flag like they did. There was nothing different about me other than the color of my skin.

Now, Tovar-Mora enjoys recreating Gordon Ramsay recipes especially burgers with her husband. She likes to collect vinyl records and take her nearly 5-year-old daughter to activities like gymnastics and dance.

If the Dream and Promise Act does not pass, she says one of her last resorts will be to have her husband petition for her citizenship.

The only reason why I hesitated is because I know how grueling this process is for myself, Tovar-Mora said. I don't want to put him through that.

For now, Sunflower is continuing to help people in Kansas sign up for DACA protections. At the DACA Turns 9 event, anyone wanting to renew their DACA credentials or apply for the first time can participate in a workshop and receive help from an attorney.

The first 10 people to register will receive $200 to help with application fees.

For Telles, just learning to appreciate the culture is a large part of immigration reform. She recalled a conversation with a friend who visited Colombia. He adored the culture there.

And I said, How will be the United States without the diversity of immigrants? Telles said. You don't have to go to Mexico to see the dances that we're going to be bringing, you don't have to go somewhere else to eat the food. It's here in our community. And this is brought by immigrants.

For more information about Daca Turns 9, visit Sunflower Community Actions Facebook page.

Katelynn McIlwain is KMUW's Korva Coleman Diversity in Journalism intern. She will be a senior this fall at the University of Missouri.

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Wichita 'Dreamers' To Mark 9th Anniversary Of DACA - KMUW

As the Big Lie of a stolen election continues to dominate the Republican Party, GOP-controlled states enact restrictive voting laws and pursue preposterous election audits, aspiring candidates embrace the fiction of a stolen 2020 election, and a majority of GOP voters still believe Trump is the true president, the obvious questions follow: Where is this all headed? And is there any way out?

In one telling, the Republican Party will eventually come back to its senses and move past former President Donald Trump and Trumpist grievance politics, especially if Republicans lose a few elections in a row and realize that its a losing strategy. But theres another possible outcome: More contested elections, more violence and, ultimately, a collapse into competitive authoritarianism enabled by electoral advantages that tilt in one partys favor.

Trump and his particular style of party leadership are easy and obvious targets to blame for the decline of American democracy, as well as the Republican Partys increasing illiberalism. But if Trump was transformative, the more important question is: Why was he able to succeed in the first place?

The most compelling theory based on historical patterns of democratic decline is that hyper-polarization cracked the foundations of American democracy, creating the conditions under which a party could break democratic norms with impunity, because winning in the short term became more important than maintaining democracy for the long term.

In order for democracy to work, competing parties must accept that they can lose elections, and that its okay. But when partisans see their political opposition not just as the opposition, but as a genuine threat to the well-being of the nation, support for democratic norms fades because winning becomes everything. Politics, in turn, collapses into an all-out war of us against them, a kind of pernicious polarization that appears over and over again in democratic collapses, and bears a striking similarity to whats currently happening in the U.S.

Theres no shortage of plausible explanations for why U.S. politics has become so polarized, but many of these theories describe impossible-to-reverse trends that have played out across developed democracies, like the rise of social media and the increased political salience of globalization, immigration and urban-rural cultural divides. All of these trends are important contributors, for sure. But if they alone are driving illiberalism and hyper-partisanship in the U.S., then the problem should be consistent across all western democracies. But it isnt.

Whats happening in the U.S. is distinct in four respects.

First, the animosity that people feel toward opposing parties relative to their own (whats known as affective polarization in political science) has grown considerably over the last four decades. According to a June 2020 paper from economists Levi Boxell, Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro, the increase in affective polarization in the U.S. is the greatest compared to that of eight other OECD countries over the same time period.

Second, the change in how Americans feel about their party and other parties has been driven by a dramatic decrease in positive feelings toward the opposing party. In most (though not all) of the nine democracies, voters have become a little less enthusiastic about their own parties. But only in the U.S. have partisans turned decidedly against the other party.

Boxell, Gentzkow and Shapiro caution that the cross-country comparisons are not perfect, since they rely on different survey question wordings over time. But they also dont pull any punches in their findings: [O]ur central conclusion that the U.S. stands out for the pace of the long-term increase in affective polarization is not likely an artifact of data limitations.

Third, more so than in other countries, Americans report feeling isolated from their own party. When asked to identify both themselves and their favored party on an 11-point scale in a 2012 survey, Americans identified themselves as, on average, 1.3 units away from the party that comes closest to espousing their beliefs, according to an analysis from political scientist Jonathan Rodden. This gap is the highest difference Rodden found among respondents in comparable democracies. This isolation matters, too, because it means that parties cant count on enthusiasm from their own voters instead, they must demonize the political opposition in order to mobilize voters.

Fourth, and perhaps most significant, in the U.S., one party has become a major illiberal outlier: The Republican Party. Scholars at the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden have been monitoring and evaluating political parties around the world. And one big area of study for them is liberalism and illiberalism, or a partys commitment (or lack thereof) to democratic norms prior to elections. And as the chart below shows, of conservative, right-leaning parties across the globe, the Republican Party has more in common with the dangerously authoritarian parties in Hungary and Turkey than it does with conservative parties in the U.K. or Germany.

The U.S. is truly exceptional in just how polarized its politics have become, but its not alone. People in countries with majoritarian(ish) democracies, or two very dominant parties dominating its politics like in the U.S. think Canada, Britain, Australia have displayed more unfavorable feelings toward the political opposition.

In fact, in a new book, American Affective Polarization in Comparative Perspective, another team of scholars, Noam Gidron, James Adams and Will Horne, shows that citizens in majoritarian democracies with less proportional representation dislike both their own parties and opposing parties more than citizens in multiparty democracies with more proportional representation.

This pattern may have something to do with the shifting politics of coalition formation in proportional democracies, where few political enemies are ever permanent (e.g., the unlikely new governing coalition in Israel). This also echoes something social psychologists have found in running experiments on group behavior: Breaking people into three groups instead of two leads to less animosity. Something, in other words, appears to be unique about the binary condition, or in this case, the two-party system, that triggers the kind of good-vs-evil, dark-vs-light, us-against-them thinking that is particularly pronounced in the U.S.

Ultimately, the more binary the party system, the stronger the out-party hatred. But there is also something particular about whats happening in the U.S., even compared to other majoritarian(ish) democracies. For example, the major parties on the right in Canada and Australia have not become as illiberal as their American counterpart. Canadian politics scholars would point out that in Canada, regional identities are often stronger than national partisan identities, and this regionalism has kept Canadian politics more moderate. And Australian scholars would point out that ranked-choice voting has exerted a moderating force on Australian politics.

In the U.S., meanwhile, (and to some extent the U.K.), politics have become extremely nationalized. Cities became more socially liberal, multiracial and cosmopolitan, most of the rest of the country held onto more traditional values and stayed predominantly white, and suburbs turned into the political battleground. And as Rodden explains in Why Cities Lose, parties with rural strongholds often wind up with disproportionate electoral power, since their opposition tends to over-concentrate its vote in lopsided districts. This rural bias is especially pronounced in the U.S. Senate, for instance.

But while its true that cultural values have emerged as a more important organizing conflict across advanced democracies (one compelling explanation is that following the collapse of Communism and the rise of neoliberalism in the 1990s, parties of the left and right converged on support for market economics), the urban-rural split in countries with more proportional voting systems is far less binary. Thats in large part because in proportional democracies, multiple parties can still win seats in geographically unfriendly areas, with coalition governments including some balance of both urban and rural representation.

Its not just the lack of a stark urban-rural divide that makes proportional democracies less polarized, though. There is also less of a clear strategic benefit to demonizing the opposition in an election that has more than two parties. For instance, in a multiparty election, taking down one party might not necessarily help you. After all, another party might benefit, since negative attacks typically have a backlash. And because parties can take stronger positions and appeal more directly to voters on policy, theres less need to rally your supporters by talking about how terrible and dangerous the other party is. Moreover, in systems where parties form governing coalitions, demonizing a side youve recently been in a coalition with (or hope to be in the future) doesnt ring quite as true.

While it is both easy and appropriate to criticize Trump and fellow Republicans for their anti-democratic descent in service of the Big Lie, it takes more work to appreciate how the structure of the party system itself laid the groundwork for the former presidents politics of loathing and fear. A politics defined by hatred of political opponents is a politics ripe for hateful illiberalism.

The new scholarship on comparative polarization is crucial in understanding this dynamic. In one sense, it offers a very depressing view: Given the current binary structure of American party politics, this conflict is mostly locked in. No level of social media regulation or media literacy or exhortation to civility is going to make much of a difference. But it also offers a kind of master key: If the structure of a party system is as crucial as these studies suggest it is, then the solution is obvious: The U.S. may want to change its voting system to become more proportional.

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Why The Two-Party System Is Wrecking American Democracy - FiveThirtyEight