Harris’ first trip abroad aims at border crisis
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris announced plans Wednesday to visit Mexico and Guatemala on what would be her first official trip abroad, as she pushes ahead on leading the White House’s diplomatic efforts on the migration challenge at the southern border. She also held a virtual briefing with regional experts on potential solutions to the sharp increase in migrants.
But she still has no plans to visit the border, a decision that is fueling Republican criticism that the Biden administration’s response remains inadequate even as jarring photos of minors held in overcrowded detention centers draw fresh attention to the problem.
The White House said Wednesday that President Joe Biden had no plans to visit either.
Rep. Steve Scalise, the House Republican whip, accused Harris of avoiding the border out of political considerations.
“President Biden puts Kamala Harris in charge of it, and she refuses to go down, because she doesn’t want to be associated with this disgraceful policy,“he said at a press conference Wednesday morning.
Harris emphasized Wednesday that she was given the job of dealing with the root causes of migration to the U.S., while Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was tasked with tackling the increase in migration at the border.
Mayorkas visited the border last month, and Biden has dispatched a number of other top aides to evaluate the situation there.
In March, a record number of unaccompanied children attempted to cross the border, and the Border Patrol had its largest number of encounters overall with migrants on the southern border — just under 170,000 — in two decades. That has detention facilities run by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol overwhelmed, and the Biden administration has rushed to open up emergency facilities. Harris has been tasked with overseeing diplomatic efforts to deal with issues spurring migration in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, which includes pressing them to strengthen enforcement on their borders, while also developing and implementing a long-term strategy that gets at the causes of migration from those countries.
“We have to figure out how to assess our impact,” she said. “It will not be obvious overnight.”