(RepublicanWire.org) – A number of White House reporters pressed White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about the border crisis in the days before a Trump-era immigration policy was expected to be terminated.
One of the reporters asked about Vice President Kamala Harris’ role in combating the border crisis, given she had been appointed to address the “root causes” of migration with the Northern Triangle countries: Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
“I’m wondering if there’s any update .. on what [Kamala Harris] has been doing and what she will continue to do” about the border,” a reporter asked Karine Jean-Pierre.
“I don’t have anything to lay out specifically on what that work looks like … I would probably refer you to her office,” Karine Jean-Pierre said.
Harris has insisted in recent months that “the border is secure.” The vice president traveled to the border once, six months into her term, but has not been back since then. She has spent three days in Latin America on two separate trips in her role.
A tracker of Harris’ scheduled events and meetings from the Los Angeles Times shows the last public appearance she made in which she discussed immigration was on June 15. The database shows 20 scheduled events for Harris on immigration in her nearly two years as vice president but only three since Aug. 5, 2021.
Officials in the administration, including Harris, have repeatedly said the border is “secure,” despite U.S. Customs and Border Protection logging roughly 2.3 million migrant encounters in fiscal year (FY) 2022. Encounters have peaked to record-high numbers in FY 2023, which began in October 2021.
A surge of migrants has arrived at the southern border in recent days as Wednesday marks the expiration of the so-called Title 42 policy, a pandemic-era policy under President Donald Trump that called on border agents to turn away migrants at the border as a way of coping with the pandemic. Jean-Pierre insisted last Wednesday that the end of the Title 42 policy does not mean the border is open.
