Kamala Harris to Meet with Mexican President to Discuss Tree-Planting for Citizenship Plan
The VP will meet with Mexican President Obrador on a proposal for US funding of a tree-planting program and citizenship for foreign nationals who participate in the program.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador pitched the idea for US funding during Biden’s online climate summit last week. The program, called Planting Life, is an ambitious plan to plant billions of trees in Central and South America and create new jobs.
“President Biden can finance the Planting Life program in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador,” President Obrador said during the summit.
“The proposal is that we extend this program to southeastern Mexico and Central America, to plant 3 billion more trees and create 1.2 million jobs.”
Mexican leaders say the plan would help stem the tide of migrants flowing to the US from South and Central America as well as positively impact the environment.
However, some critics of the program say the end result is worse for the environment than doing nothing at all. The incentives led some in Mexico to burn or cut down pre-existing trees on land to qualify for the funding to plant new trees, resulting in net deforestation in some areas.
The proposal would offer an automatic US work visa and eventually citizenship to foreign nationals who complete a three-year term with the program.
It is unclear why US taxpayer dollars should be used to fund a program to plant trees in foreign countries during a period of slow economic recovery.
Do you think taxpayer dollars should be used to plant trees in foreign countries? Would the program be effective at slowing the border crisis? Share your thoughts below!