Topline
Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to the U.S.-Mexico border this week, multiple outlets report, after Republicans excoriated her for not having visited, claiming it was evidence that she isn’t taking the migration crisis seriously.
Key Facts
Harris will visit El Paso, Texas, on Friday, where she will be accompanied by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The vice president’s trip was announced days after former President Donald Trump said he would visit the Texas-Mexico border with Gov. Greg Abbott later this month.
Key Background
In March, President Joe Biden tapped Harris to handle the migration crisis, calling her the “most qualified person” for the job. Earlier this month, Harris traveled to Guatemala and Mexico on her first foreign trip as vice president. There, among other things, she hoped to begin to address the root causes of migration. “Do not come,” Harris instructed migrants in Guatemala, urging them to stay away from the U.S. border.
Surprising Fact
The crisis at the border has become one of the major early tests of the Biden Administration: More migrants have crossed the border this fiscal year than in any since 2006.
Crucial Quote
In an interview earlier this month, NBC News’ Lester Holt pressed Harris on why she had yet to travel to the border. Harris responded that she would visit “at some point,” appearing irked by Holt’s questioning. “We’ve been to the border,” Harris claimed several times, before Holt noted that while White House officials may have visited, the vice president had yet to do so.
Chief Critic
“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,” Trump said in a statement Wednesday. “If Governor Abbott and I weren’t going there next week, she would have never gone!”
Tangent
About a dozen GOP lawmakers from the Republican Study Committee will join Trump and Abbott in Texas at the border next Wednesday, a spokesperson for Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) told Politico on Wednesday.