On March 24, 2021, Axios reported,” Biden puts Harris in charge of the frontier issue”. The New York Times reported the same day that Biden “gave the vice president a prominent part in the politically charged matter.” Kamala Harris was referred to as the “border king” by several other established media outlets and ascribed her prominent position.
At the time of the interview, Joe Biden himself said,” So it’s not her total responsibility and task, but she’s leading the work”, and” When she speaks, she speaks for me. Does n’t have to check with me. She knows what she’s doing”.
But business media have engaged in a perfect about-face this past year, today decrying the use of the word “border king” and limiting Harris ‘ part in the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the border. According to USA Today,” Harris was not made the border czar” or “never put in charge of the border,” according to immigration experts. Time declared,” Kamala Harris Was Always Biden’s ‘ Border Czar.’ How’s What She Really Did”. In the effort to find out who lied in the illegal immigration crisis, Axios also rebuffed its own 2021 protection of Harris as the border czar, as my partner Jordan Boyd precise.
The public’s about-face comes certainly as a result of a change in information ( in which case a turnaround would not only be determined but necessary ) but because of a change in circumstances. When Biden resisted running, it became politically awkward for Harris to be associated with the administration’s losses in immigration policy.
In fact, the internet pivoted because Harris has a communication problem. But it’s not” a tale issue” drummed up by right-wing propaganda. Harris has a concern because the Biden-Harris administration’s border policy has generally been viewed as a total loss.
As recently as Wednesday evening, Biden touted his border record ( as have the media ), citing lower illegal immigration numbers. Also this rumored victory is at best imprecise. Border contacts have generally decreased during the hotter summer months, so this is expected statistical variance rather than a sign of legislation achievement.
In contrast, Biden claimed that boundary contacts are now lower than when Trump left office, which is false. Encounters in both December 2020 ( 40, 565 ) and January 2021 ( 78, 414 ) were fewer than the 83, 536 encounters the Border Patrol reported in June 2024 ( the lowest number of Biden’s presidency ). More importantly, as Newsweek reviews, June encounters were also “nearly triple the average of regular misgivings during the Trump management”.
Beyond the bag of the Biden-Harris government’s problems, Harris then faces a subsequent communication issue, this one related to the public’s latest advertising campaign. The internet, as described above, emphasized Harris ‘ “border king” part when Biden gave it to her but are then saying her position was very limited.
This raises a sticky question: Did Harris back the weight of real duty as a second-in-command of the Biden-Harris management, or is the punch that” she really was n’t in charge of something” closer to describing truth? In other words, how can she argue that her experience in the Biden-Harris administration prepared her for the presidency if her role in stemming illegal immigration, one of her most widely known responsibilities, was n’t significant enough for her to bear any responsibility for the failure of the immigration process?
Media outlets argue that Harris ‘ job was n’t nonexistent, but limited — limited to addressing “root causes” in three specific countries. Technically true. However, both Biden and Harris have made the “root causes” strategy a key component of their immigration strategy, and Harris was the one to release a comprehensive “root causes” plan in July 2021. Lester Holt questioned Harris about her absence from the border while she was campaigning for “root causes” in Central America. She said,” We’ve been to the border” three times before admitting that she had n’t. This would have been a great opportunity for Harris ( or Holt ) to make clear that she was n’t the border czar, that she did n’t have the power to change things, that she disagreed with Biden on border policy, and so forth. She did n’t.
Of course, it would be unexpected for Harris to openly criticize her own administration’s policies while still vice president, but without such a critique, voters are justified in assuming that Harris will carry on Biden’s disastrous border policies — that is, unless her record prior to serving in the Biden-Harris administration indicates otherwise. It does not, which is Harris ‘ third messaging problem.
Harris ‘ third ( and most difficult ) messaging problem is tied to her own rhetoric and record on illegal immigration. According to Harris,” an undocumented immigrant is not a criminal,” which logically leads to her contention that” we’re not going to treat people who are undocumented and cross the border as criminals.” Harris does n’t believe that immigration laws should be enforced, in other words. In a Senate confirmation hearing, Harris made a comparison between immigration and the Ku Klux Klan and ICE. When asked about ending ICE in 2019, she responded that” we need to reexamine it critically” and that” we probably need to think about starting from scratch.” Beyond this, Harris has stated that she is “opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education, or public health, period”.
According to the Time article, Harris ‘ claim that she “has a broader record on immigration, including backing a bipartisan border-security deal aimed at reducing border crossings earlier this year” was being refuted. But that bill still allowed” a flood of aliens” to enter the country, as The Federalist’s Senior Legal Correspondent Margot Cleveland makes clear.
In addition, Time notes that” as Senator ,]Harris ] was an outspoken advocate of legal protections for DACA recipients, made headlines for aggressively questioning Trump immigration officials, and derided the then-President’s border wall as a’ medieval vanity project,'” but these examples detract from Harris ‘ credibility on immigration rather than bolstering it. Harris was quick to criticize agents who had been beating illegal immigrants and she was oblivious to what the U.S. Border Patrol had to say about her lack of communication with Border Patrol officials during her tenure as vice president.
Because Americans consistently rated immigration as the most important issue in the months leading up to the election, Harris ‘ vulnerability on immigration is crucial. For the first time in almost 20 years, the majority of Americans, 55 percent, are in favor of decreasing the level of immigration. Nearly two-thirds of those who support mass deportations of illegal immigrants have voiced support for mass deportations. This percentage is up from nearly 41 percent last year. The differences between the immigration policies of the Biden-Harris administration ( which included a catch-and-release protocol that allowed the release of up to 75 % of illegal aliens into the United States ) and the policies that most Americans support are significant.
Trump, on the other hand, has consistently fought against illegal immigration, and his administration has been significantly more successful in its efforts to secure the border, which Americans want.
Harris has made it clear that if she is elected, her handling of the border crisis as chief executive will be just as bad or worse than that of the Biden-Harris administration. It’s a reality the media are working hard to obscure.
The Federalist’s assistant editor is Joshua Monnington. He graduated from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary after working as an editor for Regnery Publishing.
