When Vice President Kamala Harris sat down Monday with the president of Guatemala, there was no doubt the two had plenty of ground to cover.
They could start with why Guatemala President Alejandro Giammattei has publicly disparaged Harris and Vice President Joe Biden’s excuses for the illegal immigration crisis plaguing the southern border.
Because to Giammattei, the problem started in the White House. And judging by the joint news conference he and Harris conducted on Monday, that message hasn’t gotten through nearly far enough.
In an interview conducted Friday that aired Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” Giammattei made clear that he viewed the change of presidential administrations north of the Rio Grande for the surge of illegal migration from Central America and other nations, fostered by the human-smugglers known as “coyotes.”
In the interview, conducted in both Spanish and English, Giammattei said after President Joe Biden’s inauguration, the message from the U.S. had changed from the rigid anti-illegal immigration stance of former President Donald Trump to a much more welcoming attitude.
“The message changed to, ‘We are going to reunite families and we are going to reunite children,'” Giammattei said.
“The very next day the coyotes here were organizing groups of children to take them to the United States.”
Check out the “Face the Nation” segment below. Giammattei’s speaking starts at about the 50-second mark:
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The results were predictable: A massive crush of illegal immigrants and criminal behavior such as drug smuggling and human trafficking that has overwhelmed border protection forces.
For the Biden-Harris administration, of course, it’s simply coincidental that a border that had been brought under control in the final year of the Trump administration had become a virtual invasion site within days of Biden taking the oath of office.
Roberta Jacobsen, the now-former coordinator for southern border policy, once even blamed the Trump administration’s get-tough policies for creating a “pent-up demand” for entrance into the United States, as though the chief job of the federal government when it came to border protection was ushering illegal aliens across the border at a pace that matched their desire to enter the country.
Trump understood that that wasn’t the case.
Giammattei apparently understands it too. His “Face the Nation” interview wasn’t the first time he’d put the blame for the illegal immigration crisis on Biden-Harris messaging, and how it was received south of the border.
In an April interview with MSNBC, Giammattei said the “compassionate” messages from the Biden White House were “understood by people in our country, especially the coyotes, to tell families ‘we’ll take the children.’
“And children can go, and once children are there, they will call their parents.”
Guatemala’s President Says “Message Change” is One Cause of the Border Crisishttps://t.co/h6Fh4jS91I
— Sharyl Attkisson?️♂️ (@SharylAttkisson) June 7, 2021
Joe Biden is responsible for this border crisis.
Even the President of Guatemala agrees.#BidenBorderCrisis pic.twitter.com/L9ncmVjv5R
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) June 7, 2021
The President of Guatemala is right.
The Harris- Biden Administration is to blame for the border crisis.
— Philip T. Tirino (@philiptirino) June 7, 2021
The past six months of unrelenting immigration on the southern border has been the result.
At Wednesday’s news conference, it was questionable for some time whether the American vice president had absorbed Giammattei’s ideas, as she prattled on about economic development, the “root causes” of migration – Democrats love “root causes, especially when they suit the liberal agenda — and a regional task force to combat corruption.
They all sound good, and they should all be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism about what exactly they will accomplish to keep millions from trying to flee every year. (Watch the mainstream media heap praise on them, though.)
The real tell came at the tail end of her comments to open the news conference, when Harris delivered a line obviously intended to show the administration is unflinching in its resolve to protect American borders.
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She addressed herself to those listening who were thinking about making the dangerous trek north:
“Do not come. Do not come,” she said, in what her handlers doubtless hope will be a video meant to reassure anxious Americans tired of watching their laws and borders violated. “The U.S. will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border.
“We … will discourage illegal migration. If you come to our border, you will be turned back.”
Well, actions speak louder than words. During the Trump presidency, aspiring illegal immigrants knew good and well that the president was a man committed to fulfilling his oath of office and enforcing the laws of the nation he led, because his actions proved it.
The actions of the Biden administration prove exactly the opposite – and every potential illegal immigrant, every human-smuggling coyote, every drug smuggler with an eye on the market north of the border knows it, too.
If Harris had gotten the message from Giammattei’s previous interviews, if she’d gotten it even after the two had their sit-down Monday afternoon, her “don’t come message” probably would have been near the top of her comments — maybe even a nice strong lead-in to her comments to let her country and the rest of the world know she and the administration are serious.
Instead, it was tacked on to the end, an almost grudging place for an almost grudging statement, a pro forma nod in the direction of law enforcement by a woman who might be realizing the American public have about had enough.
As anyone who’s managed a business, led a team or even lived with fellow human beings for very long, there’s a good reason for the rule that the best indication of future performance is past performance. And by that measure, the Biden-Harris administration is already a failure on illegal immigration.
Giammattei clearly understands how his countrymen see the Biden administration. The question is whether the Biden administration can see itself anywhere nearly as clear.
The answer, after Monday’s news conference, looks like “no.”
Did you know that The Western Journal now publishes some content in Spanish as well as English, for international audiences? Click here to read this article on The Western Journal en Español!
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
