Registered voters believe Vice President Kamala Harris has failed at her task of addressing the root causes of migration from Central America to the United States, a recent Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll reveals.
The results are based on online surveys of 2,006 registered voters between June 15 and 17.
The pollsters asked, “Do you think vice president Kamala Harris has done a good job, adequate job, or a bad job tackling the root causes of illegal immigration?”
Most voters rated Harris’s performance as inferior, with 44 percent saying she has done a “bad job,” 30 percent a “good job,” and 26 percent an “adequate job,” the survey notes.
Republicans and Central American governments blame Biden’s lenient immigration policies, his welcoming message, and his decision to undo his predecessor’s strict border policies for incentivizing migrants to head to the U.S. border.
The vast majority (68 percent) of registered voters agree that Biden’s executive orders on immigration, which rescinded former President Donald Trump’s border security measures, encourage illegal immigration. In comparison, 32 percent believe they do not, the poll shows.
Over half (55 percent) of registered voters believe Biden should “have left those Trump policies that made it more difficult to come into the country in place,” the survey reveals.
Conversely, 45 percent say the president was right to undo Trump’s orders on immigration.
A substantial majority of voters (64 percent) support stricter policies to reduce the flow of migrants versus 36 percent who favor keeping the current Biden border security measures in place.
More than six out of ten registered voters also blame Biden for the flood of tens of thousands of unaccompanied minor children entering the U.S. and reportedly kept in squalid conditions at some emergency shelters erected by the administration.
Some of the children at the shelters told some news outlets they are desperate to leave the facilities where they face rampant diseases, dangerous food, and sexual abuse.
Biden protected unescorted children from deportation under Trump era pandemic control protocols (Title 42), weakened by the administration.
Nearly seven out of ten (67 percent) registered voters want illegals deported, not released into U.S communities with court papers.
The Biden team is even releasing many migrants into the U.S without court papers, just a notice to report at an immigration office. Immigration officials have admitted they have no way of contacting them if they don’t show up at the office.
Voters are split 50/50 on whether the Biden administration is creating an open border or just trying to enforce immigration laws more humanely, with 66 percent of Republicans, 45 percent of Independents, and even 38 percent of Democrats saying the president is implementing an open border policy.
A slim majority (55 percent) of respondents told pollsters Biden’s border policies are increasing the flow of drugs and crime to the United States amid a wave of criminal activity and deadly drug overdoses plaguing the country. Meanwhile, 45 percent of registered voters believe Biden is simply treating migrants and border security more humanely.
The migrant surge began in the last months of Trump’s administration. Still, it intensified under Biden, resulting in record-shattering numbers of migrants encountered by border authorities in recent months, predominantly from the Central American countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, together known as the Northern Triangle.
President Biden charged Harris with leading the White House response to the border crisis.
However, Harris and her team insisted that Biden misinterpreted her mission, stressing that her job is only to tackle the root causes of migration from the Northern Triangle. Harris and her team reportedly want to avoid getting entangled with the seemingly “intractable” border crisis because it could hurt her chances of becoming president.
After condemning Trump for allegedly mistreating migrant children, Harris has indicated that her aspirations to one day become president are more important than helping those minors.
The pollsters asked the participants whether the vice president made progress in dealing with the root causes of illegal immigration during her recent trip to Central America.
Four out of ten voters said she made “no progress,” 24 percent gave her credit for “some progress,” and only 21 percent said she made “meaningful progress,” the poll shows. The remaining 16% were unsure or unaware of the trip.
Even members of her own party and the White House criticized the VP’s visit to Guatemala on June 7 and Mexico on June 8.
Harris resisted a months-long bipartisan push to visit the U.S. southern border to witness the situation first-hand but relented last Friday.
VP Harris’s overall approval and disapproval ratings are the same— with 43 percent of voters rating her as either favorable (22 percent) or very favorable (21 percent) and 43 percent seeing her as unfavorable (13 percent) and very unfavorable (30 percent).
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