The Associated Press is perfuming Vice President Kamala Harris’ immigration record by saying she adopted a “long-term” approach to President Joe Biden’s migrant flood.
The AP made its claim on August 14:
Harris was never the “border czar,” or put in charge of border security or halting illegal border crossings, as former President Donald Trump, Republicans and even the occasional media outlet have claimed. Instead, she was tasked in March 2021 with tackling the “root causes” of migration from the Northern Triangle and pushing its leaders — along with Mexico’s — to enforce immigration laws, administration officials said.
The Associated Press says Harris “was tasked” to deal with the “root causes” of migration from Central America.
But “root causes” were initially Harris’s words, not Joe Biden’s. They were delivered in March 2021 as Biden announced she had agreed to take on the much broader task of “stemming” migration from many countries.
Harris “resisted taking ownership of immigration … Harris bristled at the implication that she had a direct role to play in fixing the border,” Politico.com reported on August 10.
Harris rejected the broader mission because it is a “hot potato” in the Democrats’ establishment of anti-border progressives, said Mark Krikorian, the director of the Center for Immigration Studies.
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Subsequently, 10 million migrants trekked to Americans’ southern border, including huge numbers from Asia, South America, and Africa. That flood has pushed down wages and pushed up housing prices, threatening Harris’ chances in the 2024 election.
The flood contradicted claims of success from Harris’ office.
Harris’ staff claimed that she generated more than $5.2 billion in promised investment in the Central American countries. But only $1.3 billion in funding for “root causes” has been spent in the region, the Associated Press admitted.
That admission came in the 33rd paragraph of the AP article, which was headlined “Presented with the rise in border crossings, Kamala Harris chose a long-term approach to the problem.”
The March 24, 2021 Event
Harris’ 2021 resistance to Biden’s border tasking was visible on camera when Biden said:
I’ve asked her, the VP, today — because she’s the most qualified person to do it — to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and the [other] countries that help — are going to need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border … When she speaks, she speaks for me. Doesn’t have to check with me. She knows what she’s doing, and I hope we can move this along. [Emphasis added]
“The vice president has agreed … to lead our diplomatic effort and work with those nations to accept the returnees, and enhance migration enforcement at their borders,” Biden told the cameras he had invited for the occasion. [Emphasis added]
Harris responded to Biden’s description of her agreement to his wide-reaching commission by focusing attention on the “root causes” of migration:
Well, thank you, Mr. President, and for having the confidence in me. And there’s no question that this is a challenging situation … And while we are clear that people should not come to the border now, we also understand that we will enforce the law and that we also — because we can chew gum and walk at the same time — must address the root causes that cause people to make the trek, as the president has described, to come here. [Emphasis added]
“She was like, ‘Nope, I’m just root causes,’’” Krikorian told the Associated Press.
Some of her team members viewed Biden’s commission “as a no-win assignment,” the Associated Press admitted.
The “border czar” directive came the day before Biden told reporters at a White House press conference on March 25 that he wanted many of the migrants to be sent home.
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“They should all be going back, all be going back. The only people we’re not going to let sitting there on the other side of the Rio Grande by themselves with no help are children,” Biden said.
In the same March 25 press conference, Biden also appeared to narrow Harris’ appointed role by echoing her “root causes” language as he portrayed the rising inflow as a seasonal change in Central American migration:
The way to deal with this problem — and I started to deal with it back when I was a United States senator — I mean, Vice President — putting together a bipartisan plan of over $700 million to deal with the root causes of why people are leaving.
…
That’s why I’ve asked the Vice President of the United States, yesterday, to be the lead person on dealing with focusing on the fundamental reasons why people leave Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador in the first place. It’s because of earthquakes, floods. It’s because of lack of food. It’s because of gang violence. It’s because of a whole range of things.
The media touted Harris’s 2021 promotion to “border czar,” but promptly backtracked once Harris was nominated to replace Biden.
The March 24 meeting included Biden’s border chief, the pro-migration, Cuban-born Alejandro Mayorkas. He quickly dismantled Trump’s border defenses starting on January 20, 2021. For unknown reasons, Biden failed to force his March 25 policy — “all be going back” — on Mayorkas.
Biden backed away from the issue likely because of the party’s ideological opposition to borders, Krikorian told Breitbart News:
He didn’t have the political flexibility to turn this off [as the flood rose]… Other people in the administration, I don’t doubt — like Susan Rice –would love to have somehow dealt with this. But what were they gonna do? Fire [border chief Alejandro] Mayorkas? Face pushback from their own people?– not just the donors, but also activists, their whole base. They were kind of stuck.
Mayorkas is strongly backed by the party’s West Coast Wing of pro-migration investors and donors. For example, Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us advocacy group has strongly backed Mayorkas.
Since 2021, Harris has echoed the pro-migration language touted by Mayorkas as he used his legal skills and political backing to cut “safe and humane” quasi-legal pathways for migrants through the nation’s border and past the nation’s cautious judges.
“The president and I are absolutely committed to ensuring that our immigration system is orderly and humane, and I do believe that we are making progress in that regard,” Harris said while standing beside Mayorkas in June 2021.