Report: U.S. may pay Central American authorities to help stem illegal immigration

The United States is considering sending cash payments to several Central American countries in order to help stem the massive flow of illegal migration coming from those nations into the U.S., Reuters reported on Friday.

The U.S. is "considering a conditional cash transfer program to help address economic woes that lead migrants from certain Central American countries to trek north," the news wire said, citing outgoing Biden southern border czar Roberta Jacobson.

It is unclear what those payments would look like. Jacobson told Reuters that "the U.S. government isn’t going to be handing out money or checks to people."

The Biden administration, Jacobson added, is also going to "consider how vaccines could help the countries’ ailing economies," the news service said, potentially as a preliminary move to sending significant numbers of doses to those nations.