CORRUPTION — Regional experts say the Biden administration "must tackle corruption and social inequality in Mexico and Central America if it wants to bring about an orderly migrant flow," reports Julian Resendiz at Border Report. "The migration has not stopped despite militarization," said Jose Luis Gonzalez, coordinator of Jesuit Migrant Services-Guatemala. "Migration is more disperse, in smaller groups. Every time they apply more controls, they say (migrants) use secondary routes. But there’s nothing new. The roads and routes are there, the (smugglers) just use them more." He also said buses or trailers carrying migrants often pass right through some Mexico-Guatemala border checkpoints after paying a $100 per-head fee: "Corruption at this scale continues to operate, and that is what is leading to the high numbers in the United States."  

SISTERS — Camilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News tells the story of 13-year-old Brenda and 15-year-old Rosa, sisters who fled Honduras after back-to-back hurricanes destroyed their family’s coffee farms — and livelihood. They are just two of more than 45,000 migrant children who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border as unaccompanied minors since February. In March, the sisters were taken into U.S. custody, but remained separated because of overcrowded facilities. "I needed to be with [my sister]," Brenda told CBS News in Spanish. "I needed her to be with me." Brenda and Rosa were later reunited at a shelter in south Texas overseen by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and were eventually released from government custody to be reunited with their father, Manuel, in New Jersey. "I felt my heart was coming out of my chest because of the happiness," Brenda said of hugging her father for the first time in two years.  

INVESTMENT — Vice President Kamala Harris will collaborate with 12 companies and organizations, including Microsoft and Mastercard, to help ease the situation at the southern border, reports Tarini Parti of The Wall Street Journal. "Microsoft Corp. has agreed to expand internet access to as many as three million people in [Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador] by July 2022 and to establish community centers to provide digital skills to women and youths," while Mastercard "will seek to bring five million people in the region who currently lack banking services into the financial system and to give one million micro and small businesses access to electronic banking." Said Michael Froman, Mastercard’s vice chairman and president for strategic growth: "Our view is that we will thrive as a company when countries thrive, and therefore it’s in our interest in terms of the long term."