United States (US) Vice President (VP) Kamala Harris inspected immigration facilities and met young women during her first visit to the crisis-stricken US-Mexico border on Friday.
Harris said her trip to the border was to reinforce the message that “the crisis cannot be solved without addressing the root causes of what has resulted in the surge of undocumented migrants from Central America.” “The work that we have to do is the work of addressing the root cause. Otherwise, we’ll continue to see the effect, what is happening at the border. It’s going to require, as we have been doing, a comprehensive approach that acknowledges each piece of this,” she added.
A few months earlier, President Joe Biden entrusted VP Harris with working out a policy that would tackle the core issues causing the mass exodus of immigrants across the border and into the country. In June 2020, the VP visited Guatemala and Mexico, where she delivered an unfettered message to potential migrants. “I want to be clear to folks in the region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border: Do not come. Do not come,” Harris said at a press conference in Guatemala on June 7. “I believe if you come to our border, you will be turned back,” she added.
The blunt remarks came as Harris was under pressure from the Republican Party, which framed her as the ineffective leader who could not fix the situation at the border. The VP’s delayed visit to the border fueled the fire and added weight to the criticism from the Republicans.
A few weeks ago, the White House confirmed that VP Harris would be physically taking stock of the border situation shortly. However, the choice of June 25 may have taken in light of former President Donald Trump announcing on Tuesday that he would personally visit the border on June 30 alongside Texas GOP Governor Greg Abbott.
During the 2020 Presidential election campaign trail, Biden made big promises on reforming US immigration and consequently came to power on assurances that he will take urgent action to undo Donald Trump’s policies. Since taking office, Biden has created a brand new task force to reunify migrant children with their families, paused construction of the border wall, and initiated reviews of Obama-era legal immigration programmes that his predecessor terminated.
Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy saw migrant families split by the US authorities, with parents sent back to their home countries without their children. Unlike Trump, the Biden administration has shied away from such a hostile crackdown. In a landmark move, on his first day in office President Biden suspended a controversial Trump-era policy that forced asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for their US immigration hearings. Biden also signed an order that paused wall construction along the southern border and signed a second executive order to end the national emergency declaration in the border regions. The new President also reversed military funds for the project, leading to an inquiry by the Republicans probing whether Biden inappropriately re-directed congressionally approved funds.
The immigration of migrants from the southern border has always remained a contentious issue in US politics. With VP Harris’ visit set to be followed by Trump’s next week, the flames of political rhetoric in this humanitarian crisis are being fanned.
VP Harris Visits US-Mexico Border, Calls for Humane Approach to Immigration
US Vice President Kamala Harris, who leads the Biden administration’s efforts to curb a surge in migration across the southern border, urged Republicans to set politics aside to fix the border crisis.
June 28, 2021
SOURCE: BBC