Washington:
US Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday will check out the country’s border with Mexico, the White House announced, as the Biden administration faces intense scrutiny more than its handling of an immigration surge.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants, numerous fleeing poverty and violence in Central America, have attempted to cross into the United States in current months, prompting scathing criticism from Republicans that President Joe Biden’s more humane method to immigration was provoking rather than stopping a crisis.
Harris senior advisor Symone Sanders stated Wednesday that the vice president will check out the border city of El Paso, Texas, and will be accompanied by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Biden tasked Harris earlier this year with overseeing efforts to address what the administration describes as root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
The vice president traveled to Guatemala and Mexico in early June to address the concern, but caught flak from critics for comments that appeared to downplay the border crisis.
She was also criticized for not stopping at the border for a firsthand look at the predicament for the duration of her international mission.
Harris continues to address the root causes of illegal immigration “and work in coordination to get the situation under control,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki stated.
“This trip to the border on Friday will be a part of this effort.”
The White House did not provide information on Harris’s border plans, saying specifics would be forthcoming.
The vice president’s trip will come a handful of days prior to Donald Trump visits the border, on June 30, in a bid to contrast his hard stance on immigration with successor Biden’s more humane method.
“After months of ignoring the crisis at the Southern Border, it is great that we got Kamala Harris to finally go and see the tremendous destruction and death that they’ve created — a direct result of Biden ending my very tough but fair Border policies,” the former president stated in a statement.
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