The White House announced Wednesday that Vice President Kamala Harris would take charge of resolving the migrant crisis at the southern border.
The facts: President Joe Biden made the announcement at a high-profile meeting with cabinet members and immigration experts about the ongoing surge of arrivals from Latin America.
- “When she speaks, she speaks for me,” Biden told the press.
- Biden also blamed President Donald Trump’s cuts to aid spending led to the increased migration.
- The vice president will work with Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador to discourage migration and to improve border enforcement, as well as overseeing enforcement on the U.S. border.
“Needless to say, the work will not be easy,” Harris said. “But it is important work.”
Context: Harris laughed at a reporter’s suggestion on Monday that she might visit the southern border.
- “Not today!” she quipped, saying she may visit sometime in the unspecified future.
The border crisis: Despite mounting pressure to address an escalating surge of migrants at the border, the White House has on some occasions avoided commenting on the situation, and refused to use the word “crisis” to describe it.
- Biden has blamed Trump for the state of the southern border even as Republicans have pointed to his administration’s rollback of his predecessor’s hardline immigration policies.
- Trump on Sunday released a statement blasting Biden for turning “a national triumph into a national disaster.”
