After Biden Hands Off His Migrant Crisis to Harris, She Still Has No Plans to Visit Border
Vice President Kamala Harris won’t be on the ground at the Southwest border any time soon as she leads efforts to address a surge in migrants trying to enter the country.
Harris has no plans to visit the U.S.-Mexico border “in the near future,” spokeswoman Symone Sanders said Friday. Sanders said Harris will go to the border at some point.
President Joe Biden on Wednesday asked the vice president to lead diplomatic efforts aimed at addressing the skyrocketing number of migrants, many of whom come from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
“You can expect she will be speaking with leaders from the region in the near future,” Sanders said.
The Biden administration is backing a proposal to provide $7 billion to the Central American countries in an attempt to address the poverty and violence that leads people to flee their homelands for the U.S.
U.S. authorities apprehended more than 100,000 people as they attempted to illegally cross the border in February, the most since spring 2019.
Republicans have blamed the new administration for the increase in migrants, saying the president encouraged people to come by halting construction on the border wall, ending restrictions on immigration imposed by former President Donald Trump and backing legislation that would allow millions of people already in the country illegally to become U.S. citizens.
Sen. Ted Cruz led a delegation of lawmakers to the border on Friday.
He tweeted photos of dozens of children, wrapped in foil blankets, lying on the floor of crowded Border Patrol facilities.
“This is a humanitarian and a public health crisis,” the Texas Republican said.
These are the Biden cages. (Faces blurred.) Thousands of kids, in the midst of a pandemic, crammed in at 1500% capacity.
This is just one of the “pods” at Donna. There are SEVEN more, equally full. pic.twitter.com/zyMm5yiIPZ
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 27, 2021
Biden, at his first news conference on Thursday, pledged to increase efforts to get teens and children out of cramped Border Patrol facilities more quickly, but the overall situation does not appear to be getting any better.
A senior Border Patrol official told reporters on Friday that encounters with migrants along the Southwest border have averaged about 5,000 people per day throughout March, which would be about a 50 percent increase over February if those figures hold for the entire month.
Of the total, about 450-500 per day are unaccompanied minors, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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