Last week, Vice Pres. Kamala Harris was in California to promote Joe Biden’s two-trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. It was her second visit to her home state in as many weeks, the first devoted to “selling” the administration’s COVID stimulus, which had already been signed into law.
It’s nice to see that the vice president is keeping busy, but a question that has been on the minds of many, including members of the media, is when she plans to visit the U.S.-Mexican border. She was asked that question by a reporter shortly after the president announced that she would be handling the situation at the border, prompting her to quip “Not today.”
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So when is she planning to visit the border? The answer is she’s not. Which is not to say she’s shirking her responsibility. Confused? NBC News explains:
White House press secretary Jen Psaki has fielded frequent questions on whether Harris’ role includes addressing the current situation on the southern border, while aides to the vice president have quickly shot down suggestions that Harris is focused on anything other than tackling the root causes of migration in Mexico and the “Northern Triangle” countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. [Emphasis added]
In other words, Biden never asked Harris to deal with the humanitarian crisis at the border. Instead, he assigned her an essay question from a freshman sociology class: What is the root cause of migration?
NBC News is not wrongly incidentally. If you go back and read the transcript of the remarks the president made on March 24, you find him saying this:
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 countries that help — are going to need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border.
“Since the announcement,” NBC adds, “aides say Harris has been focused on behind-the-scenes work, reading up on the issues and attending meetings with experts.”
Well, that’s all well and good. But while Harris goes off in search of philosophical answers, what is Biden planning to do to resolve the more immediate problem of the border crisis? As reported here yesterday, the administration is spending $60 million a week just on illegal children intercepted at the border. Some are being abandoned alone in the desert to fend for themselves, while whole families wait for hours at time at the side of the road, waiting for the Border Patrol to rescue them.
