White House border coordinator to leave
Jacobson claims role was intended to last 100 days
Roberta Jacobson, the former ambassador to Mexico whom President Joe Biden chose as his “border czar” on the National Security Council, will step down at the end of the month, she said Friday.
Jacobson, who had been described as one of the Biden administration’s key players in dealing with the governments in the Northern Triangle area of Central America, praised what she called Biden’s efforts to repair and recast the nation’s immigration system after four years under President Donald Trump.
“They continue to drive toward the architecture that the president has laid out: an immigration system that is humane, orderly and safe,” she said in a brief interview. “I leave optimistically. The policy direction is so clearly right for our country.”
Jacobson said that her appointment as a special assistant to the president and as the border coordinator in the White House was always intended to last for only about 100 days — a period that will expire at the end of April, when she intends to leave government.
The timing of her departure is coming in the middle of the administration’s efforts to reduce the flow of immigration from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Jacobson had been charged with leading that effort when her appointment was announced this year.
Republican critics say that Biden’s decision to quickly reverse many of the harshest Trump-era immigration policies in his first days in office has encouraged a new wave of migration from Central America.
Biden administration officials, including Jacobson, have argued that the increased flow of migration needs to be addressed at its source: primarily in Central American countries where violence, war, poverty, gangs and natural disasters are forcing people to flee their homes for refuge in the United States.
But her role as one of the administration’s top border officials was eclipsed late last month when Biden announced that Vice President Kamala Harris would lead the government’s diplomatic efforts with that region.
In the interview, Jacobson said the president’s move to put Harris in charge of the effort to stem migration from Central America was not a factor in her decision to leave or her timing.
“I briefed and worked in support of the vice president’s leadership on this issue,” Jacobson said. “Nobody could be more delighted to see the vice president take on that role. It didn’t have anything to do with my decision.”