Harris Pinpoints One Root Cause of Border Surge. Ted Cruz Shuts It Down.

Vice President Kamala Harris addressed some of what she claimed are the reasons for the surge at the U.S.-Mexico border on Tuesday, breaking the problem down between acute factors and root causes.

In a speech to the Washington Conference on the Americas, Harris named some of the “acute causes,” such as food insecurity, hurricanes, and COVID-19.

As for the root causes, “I’m thinking of corruption, violence and poverty, the lack of economic opportunity, the lack of climate adaptation and climate resilience, the lack of good governance," she said.

VP Harris claims "the lack of climate adaptation and climate resilience” are “root causes” driving the surge at the southern border pic.twitter.com/7hYYRsnI3t
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 4, 2021

While she didn’t immediately go into details, she later spoke of delivering food, shelter and water to the people of Honduras, and, in Guatemala, working with farmers to plant drought-resistant crops and help women farmers increase their crops.
Harris has cited weather and climate issues before when talking of "root causes." Recently, in a Northern Triangle roundtable in April, she spoke extensively of the list of issues she believes are root causes. […]
"When you look at the root causes, we're also looking at issues of corruption. Again, we're looking at the issue of climate resiliency and then the concern about a lack of economic opportunity." (Fox News)

On the issue of climate change as a root cause for the border surge, Sen. Ted Cruz had one word for her.

The “root cause” of the surge is the election of a President who ran on limiting border security, halting deportations, and quickly changing the law to allow more people to stay.

The weather had very little to do with it. https://t.co/2B3gzefnRX
— Retired Orrin G. Hatch (@RetiredOrrin) May 5, 2021

It’s funny how climate change showed up right as there was a relaxation of border control policies https://t.co/eu7PkCG1ZI
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) May 5, 2021

The root cause of the border crisis isn't "climate change."

It's Biden's decision to dismantle immigration enforcement. https://t.co/tpphetP17X
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) May 4, 2021

Last month, Harris announced $310 million in U.S., taxpayer funded aid would go to Central America, part of a $4 billion regional strategy the administration has pledged to "address factors driving migration from Central America."