Republicans call Harris a failed border czar. The facts tell a different story. REUTERS
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Molly Molloy
Jul 30, 2024, 8:46:43 PM7/30/24
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Republicans call Harris a failed border czar. The facts tell a different story.
[1/5]U.S.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks with Gloria Chavez, Chief Patrol
Agent of the El Paso Sector, as she visits El Paso central processing
center in El Paso, Texas, U.S., June 25, 2021. REUTERS/Evelyn
Hockstein/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
WASHINGTON, July 30 - Vice President Kamala Harris,
tasked to deal with the root causes of migration from Central America
as illegal border crossings were rising in 2021, immediately ran into
the enormity of the mission.
The region is riddled with corrupt government officials, the drivers of migration are deeply rooted in economic inequality and social factors - and she didn't control the border.
"She
was given a very hard, difficult, convoluted portfolio," said U.S.
Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee and
an architect of a bipartisan border security bill introduced earlier
this year.
At campaign rallies and in social media posts, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has intensified his attacks on Harris as a failed "border czar," especially now that she has emerged as the likely Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden ended his campaign for reelection this month.
Despite
Harris' efforts, some 7 million migrants have been arrested illegally
crossing the U.S.-Mexico border under Biden, according to government
data, all-time highs that have fueled Republican criticism.
The
reality of Harris's record on migration is far more complicated,
according to interviews with three current Biden officials, 13 former
officials and others tracking the issue.
First,
Harris was never given the portfolio of border czar, said Alan Bersin,
who embraced the label as a special representative for border affairs
under Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. "This was not the job
assigned to VP Harris," he said.
Instead,
Biden asked Harris to lead diplomatic efforts to reduce poverty,
violence and corruption in Central America's Northern Triangle countries
of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, as well as engage with Mexico
on the issue.
It was similar to the job Biden had when he was vice president.
But that was an overly broad mission, Murphy said.
"It's
hard in a short period of time to come up with a strategy that impacts
the very real and complicated psychological decision-making that people
in those countries go through when they're deciding to come to the
United States," Murphy said in a phone interview.
And
within months of Harris taking the job, the focus on the three Central
American countries was out of step with the reality at the border -
where illegal immigration from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela was
spiking, several former officials and outside experts said.
"She
started off, in a sense, at a disadvantage because everyone was
focusing on those three countries in the Northern Triangle," said
Roberta Jacobson, who served as a coordinator for the U.S.-Mexico border
in the early months of the Biden administration. "Meanwhile, the
migrant population was changing dramatically."
Harris continued to lead the Central America effort although she has increasingly focused on abortion rights this year, a top Democratic issue since a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision struck down the nationwide right to an abortion.
The
White House said in March that Harris helped engineer $4 billion in
government aid and commitments of $5.2 billion in private investment to
create or support an estimated 250,000 jobs in Guatemala, Honduras and
El Salvador.
Nespresso
started sourcing coffee from El Salvador and Honduras in 2021. Gap Inc
said it is on pace to meet a pledge to invest $150 million by 2025 to
source textiles in the region and that it had increased yarn production
in Guatemala and provided skills training to women in Guatemala and
Honduras.
Ricardo
Barrientos, director of the Central American Institute of Fiscal
Studies think tank, said the U.S. aid and private sector investment was a
fraction of the remittances migrants from the three countries working
in the U.S. send home each year – $37 billion last year alone.
"It's very small compared to the magnitude of the challenge," he said. "Or some would say, 'too little, too late.'"
By
May, the number of migrants from the Northern Triangle caught crossing
illegally had fallen to 25,000 from a peak of 90,000 in July 2021 -
although experts say the impact of Harris' efforts remain unclear.
'BORDER CZAR'
Harris
made two trips to Central America: Guatemala in June 2021 and Honduras
in January 2022. That was one fewer than Biden, who made three trips to
Guatemala after he was assigned a similar role in 2014.
Meanwhile,
Republicans began identifying Harris with rising illegal crossings and
called on her to visit the border. She made her first and only visit to
U.S. border operations in El Paso, Texas, in June 2021, where she
defended her portfolio.
"The
reality of it is that we have to deal with causes, and we have to deal
with the effects," she told reporters at the airport.
During
the six-hour visit, Harris toured a migrant processing center, speaking
with a group of girls, her office said at the time. But she did not
tour the border wall on foot, according to pool reports, which Trump
officials did routinely.
Raul
Ortiz, the Border Patrol chief from 2021-2023, said he never spoke with
Biden or Harris although he met with Trump and then Vice President Mike
Pence more than once despite holding a lower rank during that
administration.
"I
would have liked to have had an opportunity to discuss some of the
issues and some of the recommended changes that I thought we should have
implemented," Ortiz said.
The
White House said in March that Ortiz had been invited to join Biden in
El Paso last year and did not attend, although Ortiz contested that,
saying he was not invited.
LIABILITY OR ASSET
Immigration
is the third-highest concern of U.S. voters behind the economy and
extremism, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll in June, and voters favored
Trump's approach to immigration over Biden's 44%-31%.
A Trump campaign attack ad aired
in six election battleground states on Tuesday showed images of
migrants attempting to illegally cross the border, tying the issue to
crime and pinning the blame on Harris.
Studies show immigrants do not commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born Americans.
"If
border czar Harris stays in charge, every week will bring a
never-ending stream of illegal alien rapists, bloodthirsty killers and
child predators to go after our sons and our daughters," Trump said at a
rally in North Carolina last week.
The
Harris campaign in a statement to Reuters portrayed Trump as an
extremist whose administration separated thousands of migrant families
and who helped sink the bipartisan border security bill in the U.S.
Senate - messaging in line with Biden's approach over the past year.
"There's
only one candidate in this race who will fight for real solutions to
help secure our nation's border, and that's Vice President Harris,"
campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said in a statement.
Some
immigration advocates hope that Harris - herself the daughter of Indian
and Jamaican immigrants - would better understand the humanitarian side
of the issue.
Harris
was instrumental in the Biden administration's rollout of a program in
June to offer a path to citizenship to immigrants in the U.S. illegally
who are married to U.S. citizens, two people familiar with the matter
said.
Daniel
Suvor, Harris' chief of policy between 2014 and 2017 when she was
California attorney general, pointed to her efforts to marshal legal
representation for unaccompanied immigrant children - even though
immigration was not explicitly part of her portfolio.
She
took it on herself to learn about the application process for special
visas for victims of abuse, Suvor said. And she teamed up with Brad
Smith, then the general counsel for Microsoft and co-founder of the
advocacy group Kids in Need of Defense, and started calling law firms.
Get weekly news and analysis on the U.S. elections and how it matters to the world with the newsletter On the Campaign Trail. Sign up here.
Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington, Mica Rosenberg in New York and Kristina Cooke; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Diego Ore in Mexico City and Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City; Editing by Suzanne Goldenberg
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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