Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to the U.S.-Mexico border with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Friday, according to a new report.
Harris was tasked by President Joe Biden more than three months ago to lead the nation’s response to the immigration surge. Neither Harris nor Biden have yet visited the nation’s southern border since assuming office.
A Wednesday Politico report noted Harris “will visit El Paso, Texas on Friday, according to sources familiar with the trip. She will be accompanied by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.”
The report of the vice president’s trip comes as former President Donald Trump said in a statement that he would join Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to visit the border on June 30.
Trump released a statement on Wednesday that said, “After months of ignoring the crisis at the Southern Border, it is great that we got Kamala Harris to finally go and see the tremendous destruction and death that they’ve created — a direct result of Biden ending my very tough but fair Border policies.”
TRUMP: “After months of ignoring the crisis at the Southern Border, it is great that we got Kamala Harris to finally go and see the tremendous destruction and death that they’ve created.” pic.twitter.com/6xrpbAj40T
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 23, 2021
He added, “Harris and Biden were given the strongest Border in American history. And now, it is by far the worst in American history.
“If Governor Abbott and I weren’t going there next week, she would have never gone!”
Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan was one of the first lawmakers to thank Trump “for getting Vice President Harris to finally go to the southern border.”
He tweeted, “She would never go without you announcing your trip first.”
Thank you President Trump for getting Vice President Harris to finally go to the southern border.
She would never go without you announcing your trip first.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) June 23, 2021
In a previous statement, Trump said, “The Biden Administration inherited from me the strongest, safest, and most secure border in U.S history and in mere weeks they turned it into the single worst border crisis in U.S history. It’s an unmitigated disaster zone.”
Trump noted the changes that have taken place at the border over the past five months as the Biden administration swiftly reversed his policies.
“We went from detain-and-remove to catch-and-release. We went from having border security that was the envy of the world to a lawless border that is now pitied around the world. Biden and Harris have handed control of our border over to cartels, criminals, and coyotes,” he wrote.
“Drug dealers, MS-13 gang members, human smugglers, sex traffickers, and the criminal elements of the world now have free reign. Hospitals and schools are getting crushed and public health is being sacrificed all in service of a radical left anti-borders agenda. Our brave border agents and courageous ICE officers have been illegally stopped from doing their jobs.
“Our Nation is now one giant sanctuary city where even dangerous criminals are being cut loose and set free inside the [U.S.] interior on a daily basis,” Trump added.
The announcement that Harris will visit the border comes as the immigration crisis continues to grow. A May report from U.S. Customs and Border Protection showed more than 170,000 illegal immigrants crossed the nation’s southern border, according to the New York Post.
The report noted, “[A]pproximately 900,000 migrants have been apprehended between Oct. 1 and the end of last month, the most through eight months of a fiscal year since 2006.”
In April, CBP announced more than 178,000 encounters with migrants attempting to cross the border.
In the first international trip Harris made as vice president, she said in a news conference, “We, as one of our priorities, will discourage illegal migration. And I believe if you come to our border, you will be turned back,” according to Fox News.
“Border Patrol has released more than 60,000 migrants into the United States without a court date since Biden took office, asking them to simply report to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) instead,” the outlet reported.
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