Republicans are open to the possibility that Vice President Kamala Harris will take over as the 2024 Democratic candidate based on her performance on the southern border.
As Democrats have been in turmoil over concerns about Biden’s mental clarity, some Democrats are embracing the idea that Harris could become the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer, as they , see Harris as exceedingly susceptible on emigration given her “failures” as Biden’s “border king”.
Some Republicans think it’s wise to remind voters of Harris ‘ experience as a border king because of how likely it is that people will use her as a tool against her.  ,
According to Jason Miller, top adviser to the likely Republican nominee and former president Donald Trump, Democrats are in a “no-win position” with the possibility of a Harris acquisition, according to a speech to the Washington Examiner.
” Kamala Harris owns all of Joe Biden’s stupidity and loss, plus Harris adds radical communist philosophy. While Biden kowtows to California democrats, Harris may actually be one and will have a history to support on the border, according to Miller in a statement.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX ), whose state has been heavily affected by the border crisis, said Harris has a bull ‘s-eye on her.
She will be associated with all the failed policies that the Biden administration implemented, most notably the frontier mistakes. She was appointed borders king, and she has evidently been out of touch with her since, Cornyn, who is vying to lead the Senate GOP, told the Washington Examiner on Monday.
A Biden-Harris election campaign spokesperson claimed that Harris was no Biden’s replacement and that her track record was impressive.
” Vice President Harris is happy to become President Biden’s running mate”, Rhyan Lake, Harris’s assistant communication producer at Biden for President, said. She will continue to defend the Biden-Harris situation and sue the circumstance against Donald Trump, regardless of the false accusations Trump and his extreme friends make.
Emily Benavides, a GOP planner, has provided advice on border communications for more than ten years, most recently for Gov., a GOP vice presidential candidate. Doug Burgum’s (R-ND ) super PAC, Best of America, believes Republicans would be wise to concentrate their messaging initiatives on Harris’s job.
Republicans should repeat the myriad of problems that have resulted from the Biden-Harris policy of inaction from prone alone children and encouraged drug cartels to our enemies sending in scoundrel actors, according to Benavides, who was also a spokesperson for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
American citizens want a safe and secure country, she continued,” And we should not hesitate to reinforce the fact that Kamala laughs at that idea.”
Harris’s role as ‘ border czar ‘
During the pandemic and after the Biden administration eased immigration policies, migration to the southern border increased in 2021. More than 9 million people have since arrived in the United States and been encountered by federal law enforcement, according to federal data.
In January 2021, Biden appointed Roberta Jacobson, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, as border czar. In February of this year, Biden demanded that a strategy be developed and put into action to address the root causes of people leaving their home countries.
Jacobson unintentionally left her position in April, and it has n’t been vacant since.
Although not specifically serving as a border czar, Biden gave Harris the task of handling Central American migration issues that spring.
Under Harris, the White House commenced a root causes strategy to resolve the reasons migrants were fleeing El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. It called for improving economic conditions, addressing corruption within governments, bolstering human rights, countering gangs and cartels, and combating domestic violence.
Conflicting results
The Migration Policy Institute’s Ariel Ruiz Soto said Harris’s efforts early on “backfired” for the White House.
She traveled to Guatemala at one point and delivered a powerful speech that declared,” Our borders are closed. Do not come.’ Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst at the global migration research group, said,” She and the administration really had a backseat.” ” Afterwards, it became more of her strategy, or her political strategy at least, was to try to find and shape government assistance or government collaboration with Guatemala, in particular”.
Separately, Harris also raised$ 5.2 billion in financial commitments for investments in the three countries. The non-governmental investments were intended to boost the economy, create jobs, and give local residents a reason not to feel like they had to relocate.
Gap, a clothing company, was one of the investments, which announced it would increase its sourcing of materials from Central America to$ 50 million annually with an aim to reach$ 150 million by 2025.
Republicans were flippant over the investments. The root-causes approach, according to House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN),” just meant to make unserious people sound like they’re trying to end this crisis.
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX ) href=”https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/763604/texas-democrat-calls-for-new-border-czar-ive-moved-on-from-the-vice-president/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener” title=””> said in late 2021 that he had lost hope in Harris.
” I’ve moved on from the vice president to say,’ OK, let’s work with the ambassadors and let’s work with the State Department. Let’s work with the homeland secretary,'” Cuellar said. ” I do n’t think she’s — with all due respect — put the effort in there”.
Ruiz Soto argued, however, that the border crisis was unrelated to her responsibility and that problems had arisen with the level of illegal immigration.
” Her role was never really the border”, Ruiz Soto said during a phone call. ” It’s really more about her focus on reducing irregular migration through development, less on the border”.
In recent years, Harris has focused more of her messaging on immigration issues within the U.S.
She has talked extensively about integration efforts, as well as healthcare, and immigration issues, according to Ruiz Soto.
The Biden administration faces a significant challenge because it ignores a recent development that has occurred since 2021. Before 2007, Mexicans made up 90 % of all illegal immigrant arrests.
It has “becomes more South American and increasingly global” since 2022, according to Ruiz Soto. ” We have seen a decrease in general Central American migration for some groups, migration from other parts of the world has increased and increased significantly — Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans”.
More than 62 percent of all illegal immigrants detained in the year 2024 came from nations other than the four.
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Initial numbers from 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 showed that illegal immigration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras was down, but Ruiz Soto said certain demographics were not seeing declines and that the root causes approach had in no way gotten at the root causes for global migration.
Harris claimed in February 2023 that the initiative was having a “positive impact” in reducing the flow of immigrants from the area. Later that year, though, illegal immigration from other parts of the world soared and went unaddressed thanks to her efforts to address illegal immigration from other parts of the border.
David Sivak wrote this article for the newspaper.
