Vice President Kamala Harris was tapped two weeks ago to “lead efforts” to stem the crisis on the southern border — but she still has not visited the crossing, nor has she held a press conference.
President Biden named Harris on March 24 to head up the diplomatic effort to reach out to the leaders of Mexico and the Central American countries about the flood of migrants, saying she “speaks for me.”
But so far she has only phoned Guatemalan President Alejando Giammattei and Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador to discuss the “root causes” of the crisis.
She talked to Giammattei on March 30 and Obrador on Wednesday about increasing humanitarian assistance to the Northern Triangle countries to stem the tide of migration.
“They agreed to continue to work together to address the root causes of migration from the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras – including poverty, violence, and lack of economic opportunity. They also discussed deepening the U.S.-Mexico relationship to target human smuggling and human trafficking,” the White House said of the call to Obrador.
Instead, in her first two weeks as czar, she has traveled to Connecticut, Chicago and home to California over the Easter weekend and has presided over swearing in ceremonies, touted the administration’s coronavirus stimulus package and the COVID response, visited vaccination sites, lunched with the president, attended a Cabinet meeting, and held listening sessions with faith leaders and small business owners, her public schedule showed.
Asked at the White House briefing Wednesday about when Harris might travel to the border, press secretary Jen Psaki said there were no trips on the schedule.
“I don’t have any trips to outline or preview. What our focus is on is solutions and ensuring we have more beds, we’re making that processing more efficient and effective, and that we are addressing this in a humane way that keeps these kids as safe as we possibly can,” she said of the surging numbers of unaccompanied minors showing up at the crossing.
In an interview on “CBS This Morning” the day she was named by the president to be the board czar, Harris acknowledged that the administration is facing a “huge problem.”
“Are we looking at overcrowding at the border, particularly these kids? Yes. Should these kids be in the custody of HHS, the Health and Human Services, instead of the Border Patrol? Yes. Should we be processing these cases faster? Yes,” she told the morning show. “This is, however, not going to be solved overnight.”
The Biden administration’s undoing of former President Donald Trump’s border policies has prompted a flood of Central American and Mexican illegal migrants at the US border.
Central Americans looking for refuge from the Northern Triangle countries — El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala — have taken these policy moves, as well as the overwhelmingly more welcoming tone from Democrats, as a sign that Biden is inviting them to cross the border.
The vice president’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
In her first full day after being appointed, March 25, Harris participated in a White House virtual Passover celebration with second gentleman Doug Emhoff.
That night, an aide to Trump said the former president was considering traveling to the border “soon” because Biden and Harris didn’t appear ready to make the trip.
The next day, March 26, Harris traveled to New Haven, Conn., with Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona to visit a Boys & Girls Club to talk about how the coronavirus relief plan affects child poverty and education.
She also took part in a “empowering women and girls” webast with former President Bill Clinton.
Spokeswoman Symone Sanders told reporters during the trip that the “vice president is not doing the border,” adding that she will speak in the future to “leaders from the region.”
On the same day, federal officials told The Post that a 9-year-old Mexican girl drowned the previous weekend while trying to cross the Rio Grande river into the US.
Harris had no public schedule over the weekend, March 27, 28.
On March 28, it was reported that, according to leaked documents, the Biden administration predicts the surge of unaccompanied children crossing the southern border will smash records and continue for the next six months.
The White House said the number of minors could soar to 26,000 a month in September, dwarfing the 16,000 crossing into the US in March, Axios reported at the time.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll released that Sunday showed that 57 percent of Americans disapproved of Biden’s handling of the border and 54 percent considered the situation a crisis.
On Monday, March 29, Harris joined the president when he delivered remarks about the administration’s COVID response and vaccine rollout.
On the same day, Border Patrol agents announced they had arrested a Mexican man who had been convicted of a sex offense in the US after he illegally crossed the southern border in California.
The 32-year-old man entered the US about 15 miles east of the Calexico Port, Customs and Border Patrol said in a statement at the time.
The next day, Tuesday March 30, Harris was with the president at the White House when he signed the PPP Extension Act of 2021.
Harris made a call to the Guatemalan president, as well, about the migrant surge.
Meanwhile, media reports following visits to border detention facilities found that more than 4,000 people were crammed into a center in Texas designed to hold no more than 250.
And GOP Rep. Beth Van Duyne revealed that Border Patrol officials warned the Biden administration that if it rolled back Trump’s immigration policies, it would unleash a flood of migrants to the border.
“You’ve got customs and border folks who are at the end of their rope. They’re doing what they can but they’re also very frustrated, realizing that they had actually warned this administration what would happen if they decided to push back on policies that were put in place by the previous administration that were working,” Van Duyne of Texas said during an interview on “Fox & Friends.”
Harris held a discussion with faith leaders on March 31, asking them to speak to their congregations about the need to get vaccinated.
That same day a Border Patrol agent shared video of smugglers dropping two girls, 5 and 3 years old, over a 14-foot fence on the New Mexico border.
The girls were rescued by federal officials.
A week into her being named as Biden’s deputy on the border, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott expressed his frustration at the lack of answers from Harris, sending a letter to her arguing that the administration’s foot-dragging imperils national security and endangers lives.
“I want to express to you the threats and challenges caused by this administration’s open border policies,” Gov. Greg Abbott wrote in the letter.
“These policies embolden and enrich cartels, smugglers, and human traffickers who continue to ramp up their criminal operations,” Abbott, a Republican, continued. “In many cases, these criminals lure unaccompanied minors into inhumane conditions and expose them to abuse and terror.”
On April 1, Harris held more discussions about the coronavirus, had lunch with Biden and attended the first Cabinet meeting.
She and her husband jetted off to California that night, where they remained without any public events over the Easter weekend.
That Thursday, April 1, a Border Patrol agent criticized Biden’s decision to halt construction on Trump’s border wall and said smugglers are exploiting gaps in the barrier to send groups of asylum seekers into the US.
“The project is three-quarters done. At least, they should be allowed to tie together the primary fence. Otherwise, we’re trying to catch these people in the worst possible place. It’s just sucking our manpower,” the agent told Fox News.
Harris did not appear on any of the following Sunday news shows.
Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, however, did appear on Fox News Sunday, where he revealed that he was told by federal officials to delete photos he took of a migrant center during a recent visit to the border, where he said people were being packed “like sardines.”
“We were told to delete the pictures,” the Republican said. “No one did. You’ve seen the video coming out of all of these kids crammed together under the foil blankets, huddling together.”
On Monday, as Harris appeared in Oakland with embattled California Gov. Gavin Newsom, federal authorities announced that two Yemeni men on the FBI terror watch list were arrested earlier this year after illegally crossing the border.
On Tuesday, as Harris toured a vaccination site in Chicago before she returned to DC, a video surfaced showing a young boy abandoned after crossing the Rio Grande river into Texas, tearfully pleading with a passing motorist for help.
“I came with a group. They dumped me, and I don’t know where they are,” the boy says in Spanish as he chokes back sobs to the driver who happened to be a Border Patrol agent on the way home. “They can rob me, kidnap me. I am afraid.”
The boy, wearing a dark hoodie with yellow stripes, spent the night in an area of the desert teeming with rattlesnakes and wild animals.
The child was abandoned last Thursday.
On Wednesday, Harris accompanied the president as he delivered remarks on his infrastructure plan.
Asked on March 22 if she planned to visit the US-Mexico border amid the unfolding humanitarian crisis, Harris responded, “Not today,” before letting out a belly laugh. “But I have before, and I’m sure I will again.”
