Vice President Kamala Harris’ record on illegal immigration and border security will likely loom large in the months ahead if she becomes the official Democratic nominee for president.
Following President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race and endorse Harris as his political successor, the vice president faced renewed criticism from Republicans over her alleged mishandling of the illegal immigration crisis at the southern border.
Former President Donald Trump led the charge, calling her tenure as the administration’s unofficial “border czar” a failure.
“Joe Biden will go down as the Worst President in the history of the United States. KAMALA, OUR HORRIBLE & INCOMPETENT BORDER CZAR, WILL BE WORSE!” Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday.
The previous night, Trump spoke with CBS News about Harris possibly leading the Democratic ticket.
“The policies, whether it’s him or her, wouldn’t be any different. She was in charge of the border. She was the border czar, she was the worst ever. The worst ever. We had the worst border ever, so that wouldn’t matter,” the former president said.
In March 2021, as the Biden administration grappled with a surge in illegal crossings at the southern border, Biden appointed Harris to spearhead the administration’s efforts to address the “root causes” of the surge in crossings by illegal aliens from Central America.
Rather than focusing on securing the border, the administration’s initiative focused on tackling poverty, corruption, and violence in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, countries collectively known as the “Northern Triangle.”
While Harris was not officially designated as the administration’s “border czar,” a role that practically speaking fell primarily to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden publicly tasked Harris in 2021 with leading the White House’s response to the border crisis.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the United States has seen record-high illegal immigration under the Biden administration, with significant increases clocked each year.
The Center Square analyzed U.S. Customs and Border Protection data on illegal crossings, showing that over 12 million individuals have entered the United States illegally from the southern border since 2021, the year Biden assumed the presidency.
Harris acknowledges that she focused her efforts on encouraging private sector investments, totaling over $5 billion, to boost economic opportunities and reduce violence in Central America.
The Biden administration conceded that the changes it wanted to make in Central America as part of its “root causes” strategy would require considerable work and “will take time to achieve.”
In Texas, law enforcement officials have apprehended more than half a million illegal aliens since March 2021, according to Gov. Greg Abbott’s office.
“Since the launch of Operation Lone Star, the multi-agency effort has led to over 516,300 illegal immigrant apprehensions and more than 45,300 criminal arrests, with more than 39,400 felony charges. In the fight against the fentanyl crisis, Texas law enforcement has seized over 505 million lethal doses of fentanyl, enough to kill every man, woman, and child in the United States and Mexico combined during this border mission,” a press release reads.
In response to the news that Biden was dropping out of the race and endorsing Harris, Abbott posted on X:
“Joe Biden has now endorsed and fully supports his ‘Borders Czar’ Kamala Harris to be the Democratic candidate for president. I think I will need to triple the border wall, razor-wire barriers, and National Guard on the border.”