As panicked House Republicans rush to attack Vice President Kamala Harris for her supposed role in handling the U.S.-Mexico border crisis in recent years, voters are left asking what her actual record is on immigration.
The influx of migrants and asylum seekers from Latin America, Central America, Africa, and the Caribbean at the Southern border were a hot button well before the Biden administration.
In 2021, President Joe Biden tasked Harris, U.S Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas with addressing Latin and Central American nations and working to improve immigration relations. Harris’s job was to help with diplomatic efforts, and implement a long-term strategy that looked at the root causes of migration from those countries, reported the Associated Press (AP).The White House maintains that Harris was not a “czar.”
“Republicans continue to block getting resources to the border patrol agents. They continue to block actually dealing with an immigration system,” said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in a July 26 briefing. “So, yes, we are going to debunk the false characterization of the Vice President. She was not a border czar.”
Federal immigration policies were pushed further into the spotlight in New York City when Republican border states started ushering migrants to sanctuary cities in Democratic states as a political dig in 2022. The ensuing deluge of migrants and asylum seekers left the city scrambling to respond with stretched resources. To date, the city has seen about 207,000 newly arrived migrants and asylum seekers, according to city numbers.
Mayor Eric Adams, and later Gov. Kathy Hochul, has been increasingly vocal for two years about criticizing Biden for his handling of the migrant influx and immigration policies, especially when it came to expediting work authorizations. Little of that blame fell directly on Harris, though.
Recently, Adams has shifted gears to fully support Harris for president. “The mission is electing VP Harris. That’s what I’m focused on,” said Adams in a press briefing on July 30.
Earlier this year, Biden and Harris strongly supported the bipartisan national security deal that House Republicans refused to pass. By June, Biden announced executive orders to slow the stream of migrants and asylum seekers coming into the country.
“Why are Republicans so sensitive to them not owning up to them getting in the way of a border deal? Why? Why won’t they own up to that?” Jean-Pierre said in the briefing. “It was a bipartisan deal, just right there available to them and they voted twice against it.”
New York City and many other cities grappling with the influx of migrants were in support of Biden’s actions to limit access to asylum at the U.S. southern border once the seven-day average of people crossing between ports of entry exceeds 2,500. Although some local pro-immigration groups were opposed, again, their criticism fell to Biden and the administration as a whole.
“President Biden’s reckless executive action is a political stunt that turns our back on our humanitarian obligations and is a stain on our nation. The President continues to bend like a reed in the wind regarding our nation’s commitment to refuge and safety,” said Murad Awawdeh, New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) president and CEO, in a previous statement.
“This executive action will harm many families and individuals, and do nothing to advance what this country needs most—an orderly and reformed immigration system that works for all communities to secure lives with dignity, opportunity, and shared welcome. Viable and smart solutions aren’t hard to find but the political will to act with courage is. It’s not too late for the Biden administration and Congress to provide real proposals that invest in safe and legal immigration pathways, address the root causes compelling people to seek refuge, and work in coordination with regional governments and civil society to strengthen humanitarian protection systems.”