If Vice President Kamala Harris is the Democratic presidential nominee, Republicans have a ready-made case against her: They can say she was President Biden’s “border czar,” in charge of immigration and the border, and she failed.
At least seven different speakers at the Republican National Convention last week used the moniker to describe Harris, from the president of Goa Foods to an anti-immigration activist to Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida.
There is just one problem. The Vice President was never in charge of the border. The job is for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Health and Human Services Secretary Javier Becerra.
Still, a combination of right-wing spin, media hype during Harris’ first term, miscommunication from the White House and rising immigration numbers during the Biden presidency have stuck with the label. Now, it stands as one of the more serious challenges facing Harris, whether he is the vice president or presidential nominee.
Where the “Border Czar” label began
Referring to Harris as a “border czar” is not new. Right-wing media, anti-immigrant activists and Republican politicians are using the label for the vice president. for the year.
It has its roots in March 2021, when Biden announced that he would give Harris essentially the same duties as during his own vice-presidency: coordinating diplomatic relations to address the “root causes” of immigration to the United States.
“I asked him, the VP, today — because he’s the most qualified person to do it — to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and aid countries — to help stop the movement of so many. People, stop immigration at our southern border,” Biden 24 said during a White House meeting on immigration in March, 2021.
The idea behind this approach is a long-term strategy: the surge at the border was a symptom of the deeper economic, diplomatic and security problems facing these countries that caused people to travel north. The assignment was somewhat cursed from the start — a “politically treacherous job with little short-term pay,” as It has been described By the Los Angeles Times — because any benefits from addressing these root causes will clearly take time. Meanwhile, the border has seen more legal and illegal crossings every month.
Senior White House officials who briefed reporters before the announcement stressed at the time that it was a Diplomatic appointments: A two-pronged approach to build diplomatic ties with these countries and oversee the implementation of investment and foreign aid in these countries to address infrastructure, boost business and strengthen civil society.
From the start, however, media coverage and White House communications about the role were confused. Headlines call Harris “Immigration Officer” and “Blamed for the immigration crisis“When superior officers said later Harris will “oversee a whole-of-government approach” to tackling immigration.
The White House communications team spent much of that early period trying to clarify the assignment, but as migrant border crossings continued to rise, much of the press and public attention focused on why Harris and the administration weren’t more focused on short-term solutions. Term problem.
Adding to the mess were Harris’ own missteps. He was widely criticized in the press for being defensive in his early days International travel in Mexico and Guatemala in June 2021, and by migrant rights activists a speech In which he urged “people in the region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the US-Mexico border: Don’t come. Don’t come.” He dodged questions about why neither he nor Biden visited the southern border when he talked about the border abroad, prompting criticism from Republicans.
Then came a The widely mocked interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt during that visit, where he appeared to mock Holt’s question about why he didn’t go to the southern border if he was trying to stem the flow of immigration north. “At some point, you know, we’re going to the border,” Harris told Holt. “We have gone to the border. So this whole thing about borders. We have reached the border. We have gone to the border.”
When Holt pointed out that he hadn’t, he seemed to discount the question, replying that he “hadn’t been to Europe. And I mean, I don’t understand … the point you’re making. I’m not discounting the importance of borders.”
It was a significant moment in the context of criticism of Harris: In this first year of the Biden-Harris term, Harris and his office faced intense media scrutiny about the VP’s role, his ability to communicate with the public and his office. internal quarrel. question swirled in the press about whether Harris was plugged into Biden’s inner circle, whether he had a clear portfolio of assignments and whether his team was equipped to help him carry out his duties if they clashed with the president’s staff or left his office altogether.
On top of all this, Harris received another doomed assignment: to lobby suffrage reform In a deadlocked Senate, where legislative proposals from Biden and House Democrats failed to pass a filibuster.
Border crossings would continue to increase over the next three years, fueling Harris’ criticism. As my colleague Nicole Naria explains, the nature of this immigration growth is also beginning to change, making Harris’s “root cause” task more difficult:
Under the Trump administration, most migrants arriving at the southern border have been from Central America’s “Northern Triangle”: Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. However, in the past few years, the number of immigrants from those countries has been overtaken by those from South America—especially Venezuela, Colombia, and Nicaragua—and the Caribbean, including Haiti and Cuba. They have been displaced by recent complex political and economic crises and natural disasters in their home countries.
Republican and conservative commentators had a field day with all of this, choosing immigration as the main line of attack in the 2022 midterms. They introduced a law tying Harris to the term “border tsar”.Border Patrol Accountability Act” and resolution Called for Harris to be stripped of the assignment. They spent hours talking about trips to Guatemala and halting interviews on cable news and in Congress. They ran midterm ads about immigration, tying Biden and Harris to the border “crisis.”
Ultimately, they managed to blur the line between the assignment given to Harris and the worsening conditions on the southern border.
Why are Republicans now zeroing in on this attack?
The Republican National Convention provided a preview of how this line of attack will be used against Harris as the general election approaches.
According to Google Trend, searches for this term have increased recently InformationLikewise how they grew when Harris was given his first root-cause assignment in the moments before the 2022 midterm elections, and news coverage about the border.
Former presidential candidate Nikki Haley previewed Tuesday night how Republicans plan to cut through the confusion: “Orange had a job. a job And that was to fix the border,” he said. “Now imagine him in charge of the entire country.”
Other speakers this week cited “border zar Kamala Harris” as “responsible for the encouragement”.[ing] Millions of illegals invade America…[ting] the welfare of illegals over their own citizens,” as Ohio GOP Senate candidate Bernie Moreno said.
Even Trump’s campaign chief Recognized This is their best line of attack against VP.
Meanwhile, the White House and the Biden campaign don’t seem to have a strong answer to the attacks, calling them “lies” and “smear” pointing to the vice president’s diplomatic work over the past few years.
The assignment he was given has received little media and White House attention, but the administration has regular is provided Update above”The root cause is strategy” During the first year of the assignment he visited Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico only once, although he retained unworldly And inside– person the meeting with heads of state of the region. Still, it doesn’t seem like Central America or Mexico has been a real focus for the vice president, especially since the midterm elections and its fallout. Roe v. Wade.
A White House official pointed me to the visits and roundtable meetings Harris has held on this assignment, citing $5.2 billion in investments Harris has announced to expand Internet access and fight corruption in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Meanwhile, a Biden campaign official pointed to efforts by the White House in 2021 to clarify Harris’ duties.
As I’ve written before, Republican attacks on the Biden administration’s immigration efforts aren’t going away anytime soon. The American public’s mood on immigration and the border has worsened dramatically over the past two years, and the specifics of Harris’ original appointment may not matter to voters who just want less immigration, period. As long as the public continues its anti-immigration bent, it seems likely that the “Border Czar” nickname is here to stay.
