Vice President Kamala Harris will be finally visiting the U.S.-Mexico border this Friday after avoiding the area since being tapped by President Joe Biden to help address the long-standing issue of illegal immigration.
Politico reports Harris will be visiting El Paso, Texas with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas expected to be in attendance as well. Harris will be making the trip days before former President Donald Trump is set to visit the border next week.
Harris has been defensive when she was asked about not visiting the border amid a huge surge of illegal border crossings since Biden has been in office. When asked by NBC's Lester Holt on not going south, Harris awkwardly quipped, "And I haven't been to Europe and I mean, I don't understand the point that you're making."
What Politico gets wrong in the report is the framing on how she is making the visit "amid an unrelenting chorus of criticism from Republicans." Democrats, particularly those who live on or near the border, have been vocal in asking Harris to see the crisis firsthand.
Breaking: Vice President Kamala Harris is heading to the U.S.-Mexico border this week, amid an unrelenting chorus of criticism from Republicans over her failure to visit there https://t.co/ouro9BDReg
— POLITICO (@politico) June 23, 2021
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Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX), who lives in the border town of Laredo, sent a letter to Harris last week, asking her to "observe the ongoing humanitarian crisis and share the perspective of Americans who live there." Val Verde County Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez, a Democrat, also criticized Biden and Harris for abandoning the town of Del Rio, Texas.
"They've been invited. I've invited them through several media outlets several times to come down here and see firsthand, but I don't think that that's at the top of their agenda, it's really not," he told Townhall.
In a statement responding to Harris finally going to the southern United States, Trump 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.
"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!"
When asked about the timing of the trip during Wednesday's press conference, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the trip is part of a "coordinated effort" to "address the root causes" of the border crisis.
Jen Psaki is asked what spurred Kamala Harris' decision to visit the border this Friday.
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 23, 2021
She says that the scheduling of the trip is part of a "coordinated effort" to "address the root causes" and "get the situation under control." pic.twitter.com/ru3W16vIOb
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