Vice President Kamla Harris (D) assured NBC News' Chuck Todd the U.S.-Mexico border is secure despite the record setting number of illegal border crossing that have occurred since the start of President Joe Biden's administration.
When asked by Todd, Harris said the border is secured and the way to fix the current influx of illegal immigrants is to provide a "pathway to citizenship." Harris was tapped by Biden early on in the administration to address the border crisis, but it appears Harris has done little outside of a few visits to Central America.
“I think that there is no question that we have to do what the President and I asked Congress to do, the first request we made: pass a bill to create a pathway to citizenship. The border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system, in particular, over the last four years before we came in, and it needs to be fixed," said Harris.
"We’re going to have two million people cross this border for the first time ever. You’re confident this border’s secure?" Todd pressed.
"We have a secure border in that that is a priority for any nation, including ours and our administration. But there are still a lot of problems that we are trying to fix given the deterioration that happened over the last four years," Harris repeated. "We also have to put into place a law and a plan for a pathway for citizenship for the millions of people who are here and are prepared to do what is legally required to gain citizenship. We don’t have that in place because people are playing politics in a state like this and in Congress. By the way, you want to talk about bipartisanship on an issue that at one time was a bipartisan issue both in terms of Republican senators and even presidents."
"More gobbledygook from the Barney Fife admin. Border is 'secure' [and] the usual head fake 'broken immigration system' nonsense. Real world: border not close to secure, millions entering, up to 240 miles not patrolled as [Border Patrol] processes fraudulent asylum claimants, 800 dead this year." the National Border Patrol Council tweeted in response to Harris' interview.