Vice President Kamala Harris has tapped Wall Street and Silicon Valley CEOs for advice on how to tackle the porous southern border and stem the inflow of illegal immigrants fast defining her struggling tenure of office.
Those called on for help include Microsoft President Brad Smith, Cisco Systems Chief Executive Chuck Robbins and Citigroup C.E.O. Jane Fraser, according to Bloomberg News.
The revelation comes just days after it was revealed Harris sought the counsel of twice-failed presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton on the best way to reverse diving approval ratings while at the same navigating the travails of public life, as Breitbart News reported.
“The vice president has worked closely with business leaders across a range of issues – and throughout her career she has viewed the business community as an important partner when it comes to getting things done, with speed and impact in mind,” said Harris economic adviser Mike Pyle in a statement seen by the Daily Mail.
In the spring, Harris asked the executives – including Mastercard Chairman Ajay Banga and Chobani C.E.O. Hamdi Ulukayi – how to address poverty and corruption in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, as a way of mitigating the “supply side” of illegal immigrants trying to breach the U.S. border.
They reportedly described what they saw as some of the key issues pushing migration, and said their charitable contributions would be more effective if they worked in unison.
“She latched on to that and kind of said, ‘That’s interesting. How many ideas can we come up with? How could a team of people get together?”‘ Banga told Bloomberg News.
Harris aides say she has also held calls with the heads of big banks, such as Bank Of America C.E.O. Brian Moynihan, J.P. Morgan Chase and Co C.E.O. Jamie Dimon, and Truist Financial Corp. C.E.O. Kelly King.
The effort comes during a year of record breaking numbers of arrivals at the southern border and Harris’s own office is beset by rumors of dissent from workers looking to exit her employ.
While Harris has remained passive on illegal immigration at the southern border, the Biden administration is set to welcome nearly two million border crossers and illegal aliens by the end of the year, new analysis projects.
Such a level of illegal immigration would “set an annual record by a very large margin, coming in almost 300,000 above the next highest year, 1986, when 1.6 million apprehensions were recorded,” the analysis notes.
Numbers released this month alone show the agency’s officers encountered some 173,620 illegal crossers in November – a 140 percent increase in illegal crossings from the same month last year, when there were 72,113 encounters.