…Harris’s office on Thursday released what it calls a “Root Causes Strategy” that lays out, in just 18 pages, what decades of policymakers and successive administrations have apparently missed: the reason so many Central Americans come to the United States illegally…is because their countries are plagued by poverty, crime, corruption…Solve those problems and bang! — you solve illegal immigration.

But seriously, the vice president’s “root causes” document amounts to a heap of bureaucratic nonsense…

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It’s hard to overstate the Biden administration’s fundamental unseriousness about all this…Harris has shown a mixture of dismissiveness and incuriosity in her role as Biden’s “border czar.”…

The “five pillars” Harris puts forward as the administration’s core strategy are exactly the kind of inept, unfocused, and…meaningless efforts that have come to nothing over the past two decades in the region…There’s nothing wrong with these as overarching goals, but one must be realistic about the enormity of the task…and cognizant of what’s been tried…and failed…

For example, how will the United States accomplish these lofty goals? Take it away, team Harris: “Effecting systemic change and achieving the desired end state of a democratic, prosperous, and safe region will require the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to govern in a transparent…and inclusive manner that favors the public interest…”

That’s great, but does Harris know that the president of Honduras…is almost certainly a drug-trafficker…Is Harris aware that President Alejandro Giammattei of Guatemala…is right now facing mass civil unrest and demands for his resignation over the firing of a special prosecutor who was investigating corruption cases…

If you begin with the assumption that the only way to stop illegal immigration is to transform Central America into a model of good governance and economic prosperity, then you’ll never stop illegal immigration…

The Harris strategy…is described as “a core component of our Administration’s efforts to establish a fair, orderly, and humane immigration system.” But there’s no mention of other core components that must be a part of such a strategy…

…[L]ike asylum reform, border security, and the robust enforcement of immigration laws, including enforcement of deportation orders…by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement…

Instead, this pipe dream of nation-building in Central America, along with the entire mantra of addressing “root causes,” has been the only thing the administration has been willing to say about…the ongoing fiasco at the border. …

To put it bluntly, the “root causes” approach is designed to fail, because it ties the transformation of Central America’s Northern Triangle — a nearly impossible task — to meaningful reform of the U.S. immigration system…

As it is, the administration’s strategy amounts to nothing more than bromides and half-measures that have been tried…and accomplished nothing except to line the pockets of nongovernmental organizations…to provide goods and services that Central Americans don’t need — like digital banking apps for Guatemalan farmers…

But even if by some miracle Harris could cackle and wave a wand over Central America, magically whisking away the cartels and gangs and corrupt politicians that run these countries, we would still be facing a crisis on our border, which at this point has become a magnet for migrants from all over the world…

Why are they coming? No doubt, many of these folks hail from places that, like Central America, suffer from poverty, violence, and corruption. But they are coming now because they know that if they can get across the Rio Grande, the Biden administration will let them stay.

That’s the plain truth, and no amount of hand-waving about “root causes” and grand strategy and nation-building in the Northern Triangle will change that.

How are you praying about the border crisis? Please share your prayer in the comments below!

(Excerpted from The Federalist. Article by John Daniel Davidson. Photo Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images).