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Kamala Harris Is Not Keeping It Real
The vice president’s cold handling of a migration crisis conveniently disregards the mess the U.S. has historically made in Central America
Vice President Kamala Harris has never looked more like an American politician than she did last week. That is not a compliment.
America’s migration volume is the highest its been in more than 20 years. The most recent spike began after Biden was elected. And thus far, his administration’s handling of the situation has been a capital-F failure.
In March, Biden told Americans that Trump eliminated the $700 million he raised as Obama’s vice president to directly aid the Northern Triangle of Central America (Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala). But that’s irrelevant now. The current migration issue is now completely Biden’s to fix. So he sent Vice President Harris on the road to reach the root of the problem. Today, that decision may be a regret.
Instead of visiting the U.S.-Mexico border, Harris traveled to Guatemala and told all who were seeking asylum, “Do not come. You will be turned back.” She then visited Mexico and continued dissuading travel to the U.S. border. “It can be a very treacherous trek,” she said. When pressed on why she hadn’t yet visited the border, she replied, “And I haven’t been to Europe.” It was just one of the “Border czar”’s — GOP antagonists’ new nickname for Harris — many odd moments during the trip.
The worst part of Harris’ xenophobia is its qualification echoes Biden’s misleading rhetoric about him discovering that immigrants flee their homes as a result of natural disasters, drug violence, and poor economy. Alejandro Giammattei, president of Guatemala, says Biden’s administration led his people to believe that the U.S. welcomed their asylum. Harris was sent to deliver the bad news: Nah. Her focus frequently returned to the shortcomings of Central America and Mexico. She sounded like John David Washington’s character in Malcolm & Marie — incapable of considering the possibility that her own country contributed to the terrible state of these foreign lands. It wasn’t a good look.
The greater problem with Harris’ remarks is that they continue a decades-long and nauseatingly…
