Related Post
Vice President Kamala Harris is heading to the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday, after Republicans have criticized her for months for not making the trek.
President Joe Biden had put Harris in charge of dealing with the root causes of the migration crisis, which quickly turned her into the person to blame for the spike in migrants coming into the U.S.
Politico reported Harris was making the trip, alongside Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and would be traveling to El Paso, Texas.
Vice President Kamala Harris is heading to the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday
Immigrants walk toward border patrol after crossing the Rio Grande into the U.S. on Monday
Former President Donald Trump will visit Texas next Wednesday alongside Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and GOP House members
A Harris spokesperson didn’t respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
The vice president will beat former President Donald Trump to the region by five days.
Trump announced last week he would be heading to Texas on June 30 to survey the border alongside the state’s Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
About a dozen members of the Republican Study Committee, the largest group of House Republicans, will also join Trump on the trip, Politico reported.
Republicans have slammed Harris for not making the trip yet.
‘It reminds me of that old show, “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” She’ll go everywhere except the border because she’s afraid of what’s going on down there, and they have no solutions,’ Republican Sen. Ted Cruz told Fox & Friends.
Harris took her first trip abroad earlier this month to Guatemala and Mexico to meet with government and community leaders about the migrants flowing into the U.S.
In an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt from Guatemala, Harris was asked why she hadn’t visited the border. ‘Why not see what Americans are seeing in this crisis?’ the newsman asked.
She first answered that why there’s ‘no question’ about the White House having to deal with what’s happening at the border ‘we have to understand that there’s a reason people are arriving at our border and ask what is that reason and then identify the problem so we can fix it.’
Holt then asked if Harris had anhy plans to visit the border.
‘At some point, you know, we are going to the border. We’ve been to the border. So this whole thing about the border, we’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border,’ she responded.
Holt pointed out, ‘You haven’t been to the border.’
‘And I haven’t been to Europe,’ the vice president said. ‘And I mean, I don’t understand the point that you’re making. I’m not discounting the importance of the border.’
The response was widely panned.
Harris later snapped at Univision reporter Ilia Calderon, the day after she returned from the trip, telling her ‘I’ve not finished,’ as Calderon pressed when there might be a border trip.
‘I’ve said I’m going to the border. And also, if we are going to deal with the problems at the border, we have to deal with the problems that cause people to go to the border – to flee to the border. And that is the root causes,’ Harris said, justifying her first foreign trip being to Guatemala and Mexico.
Biden has loaded Harris down with seven jobs – including running point on migration.
On Monday, Harris was tasked with selling Biden’s Child Tax Credit, with a trip to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In early June, the vice president received her fifth and sixth jobs, as the president asked her to go on a vaccine education tour and handle the administration’s efforts to protect voting rights.
Harris was on Capitol Hill Tuesday and presided over Senate Democrats’ failed vote to start debate on a voting rights measure.
She’s also handling the issues of broadband and space and also leading a pro-union taskforce that would take a ‘whole-of-government approach to empower workers.’
In late March, Biden announced he had tapped Harris to lead the effort to stem migration coming from the Northern Triangle countries – El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – and up through Mexico.
Harris, he said, ‘agreed to lead our diplomatic effort to work with those nations.’
Very quickly Harris became a target for Republicans as border crossings soared and she didn’t travel to the border to see the conditions on the ground.
In mid-April, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the ‘confusion’ surrounding Harris’ role with the migrant crisis is ‘perplexing,’ arguing immigration policy has never been a ‘one-woman’ job.
Psaki also pointed out that Biden, as vice president, had essentially played the same role during the Obama years.
