The first female vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, has been given her first responsibility in office: address the U.S. border crisis. But she seems to be absent without leave, or AWOL, and some have described her as missing in action, or MIA.
Liberty Nation’s Jeff Charles wrote insightful coverage of a CBS 60 Minutes interview with then-Senator Kamala Harris of California in October 2020. Norah O’Donnell asked if Harris planned to bring her socialist agenda to a Biden administration:
“’No,’ Harris scoffed, adding that she would instead bring the perspective of a woman ‘who grew up a black child in America, who was also a prosecutor and someone who ‘likes hip-hop.’ The candidate also stated that she promised Biden that she would always be honest with him and provide him with her thoughts based on her ‘lived experiences.’”
Apparently, those “lived experiences” do not include managing crises, although everyone knows there is nothing like a good dose of “hip-hop” to stem streaming hordes of illegal migrants overwhelming the U.S. southern border. When it comes to precisely what Vice President Harris is expected to do, Sam Dorman from Fox News told us: “Harris has been assigned to work with other countries to tackle migration and returning migrants to their home countries.” According to Dorman, Harris’ assigned task was “leading efforts to address migration to the southern border, where the nation is facing what’s been described as a “humanitarian crisis.”
Though Harris has been publicly absent from working on border issues, she has had time to make phone calls to “major world leaders” such as Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau and Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel. We have not been given a readout on what counsel these two leaders gave Harris, but Bibi may have advised that “the wall” works for Israel.
In its predictable “protect-the-Dems” posture, CNN’s Jasmine Wright and Arlette Saenz, in their article “Kamala Harris dives into migration diplomacy as GOP aims to make her the face of the border crisis,” explained that Harris’ aides had defined the vice president’s “official task as leading the diplomatic outreach to Central American countries to address root causes of migration.” Dorman provided a White House clarification about Harris’ job, pointing out “that Harris wasn’t involved with the ‘border crisis,’ but was instead focused on addressing the ‘root causes – not the border.’”
However, some folks in D.C. have a different take on what’s needed. Expressing his views on where the veep should spend some of her efforts, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), after touring the Rio Grande River in Texas, suggested pointedly that she should: “Get down here. Get informed and recognize you’ve got a crisis, and it’s on you to fix it.” Now.
That message has not registered, it seems. “I will just reiterate that the vice president is not doing the border,” Symone Sanders, Harris’ spokeswoman and a senior adviser, told reporters. On second thought, because Harris’ determination to steer clear of the vexing border is so vehement, perhaps keeping the veep away is preferable.
In an opinion piece in The Hill, Nolan Rappaport, who served as immigration counsel for the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims for four years, captured the essence of the border problem succinctly. His view of Vice President Harris effecting a positive outcome from her “diplomatic outreach” is low. He explained:
“This has been tried already with the Central American countries. Between fiscal 2013 and fiscal 2018, the United States provided $3.7 billion in aid to Central America, and the Obama-Biden administration promoted economic prosperity, improved security, and strengthened governance in Central America in 2014 with its U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America program. It hasn’t worked.”
As Rappaport rightly recalled, when asked during the 2019 primary Democratic debates whether an illegal alien should be deported if being in the country illegally was the only offense, Harris responded, “I will say, no, absolutely not. They should not be deported.” So Rappaport concluded that “Harris doesn’t want to enforce our country’s immigration laws, so I wouldn’t expect her to have much concern about securing the border to keep undocumented aliens out of the country.”
There is little chance that Harris will solve Biden’s border chaos. On the upside, Harris’ diplomatic outreach role to Central American countries may keep her occupied, and that could be the safest bet for everyone. Keep in mind the caution of Hippocrates: “First, do no harm.”
The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliation.
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