According to Symone Sanders, Harris senior advisor, Harris will be visiting El Paso with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Harris was subject to months of criticisms from Republicans and frustration from members of her party for refusing to travel to the region. President Joe Biden has given Harris the task of tackling the root causes for migration from Central America to America.
She has so far focused her efforts on improving the economic and living conditions of the region. Her aides repeatedly stressed that her attention is not on security issues that could plague U.S. officials trying handle an increase in border crossings.
Republicans are using the failures of Harris and Biden as an excuse to criticize the administration for not responding to what they call a crisis at their border. This issue dominated Harris’s first overseas trip to Guatemala and Mexico earlier in the month. She met with leaders of both countries, as well as local officials, advocates, and representatives to discuss humanitarian and economic solutions to the large outmigration from each country.
Harris and White House aides in Washington had to evade repeated questions about Harris’s decision to cancel a border visit.
Harris noted that she is a California senator who has been to the border before and has stated that the problem at the border cannot be fixed unless the root causes are addressed.
She urged Central Americans to not attempt to cross the border to the United States during her recent visit to Mexico and Guatemala. She tried to instill hope and encourage people to stay at home.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection had more than 180,000 encounters with Mexican border officials in May. This is the highest number since March 2000. The numbers were increased by a ban on asylum seeking, related to the pandemic, which encouraged people to try crossing the border again and was not subject to any legal consequences.
Harris’ visit will be made just days before Trump visits the border next week. Greg Abbott. Jim Banks, the Republican Representative from Indiana, and around a dozen members the conservative Republican Study Committee that he heads will be accompanying the trip. This is another indication of how closely the party aligns itself with Trump and how much they consider the border to be a winning issue.
Trump immediately claimed credit for Harris’ trip and speculated in a statement, that Trump wouldn’t have made plans to travel if he hadn’t been there.
Republicans tried to make Harris the face and symbol of the administration’s policies. They claimed that Biden and Harris were neglecting the issue since they had not yet visited the border. During her Latin America trip, Harris told reporters that she was more focused on tangible results than grand gestures.
