Broken border means Kamala Harris failed families ravaged by fentanyl and communities beset by crime
Kamala Harris' border strategy haunts down-ballot Dems as new ad previews GOP general election attack
Democrats are being tied to Vice President Kamala Harris on the southern border in a new ad previewing the GOP's attack strategy.
The dizzying ascent of Vice President Kamala Harris, from the most extreme leftist in the U.S. Senate, to also-ran 2020 presidential candidate, to vice president of the United States, to presumptive 2024 presidential nominee, and — for all we know — de facto president of the United States in the accelerating dotage of President Joe Biden, has little precedent in American history.
There are a lot of firsts in her resume, for better and worse alike, but for those of us in Texas, one matters more than the others: she will be the first White House border czar to contend for the presidency.
Here in Texas, we live with Harris’s border — and it is, in a word, a disaster.
You may have heard by now that this is fake news. Harris, insists compliant regime media, was never a "border czar." The title doesn’t even exist, they say: there’s no federal title including the word "czar" anywhere. But all this is disingenuous and misleading on two counts.
Migrants walk along the highway through Suchiate, Chiapas state in southern Mexico, Sunday, July 21, 2024, during their journey north toward the U.S. border. (AP Photo/Edgar H. Clemente)
One is rhetorical: The colloquial use of "czar" for a federal senior official focusing upon a specific subject matter has been commonplace for decades. (Searching WhiteHouse.gov turns up dozens of examples, including from the Biden administration.) Members of Congress certainly thought Harris was a border czar.
The other reason it is misleading, and downright deceptive, is that the White House actually staged a formal presidential event in March 2021 to announce the vice president’s assumption of responsibility for — well, let’s let President Joe Biden tell it:
"I’ve asked her, the VP, today … to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and the countries that help — are going to need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border."
The historical record is clear and indisputable: whatever you want to call it, she owned it. The real fake news is the accusation of fake news. Harris was tasked by the president of the United States to deal with "stemming the migration to our southern border." So, given that responsibility, what is her record?
There’s a reason she won’t run on it.
By any metric, the Biden-Harris border record, with Harris at the helm, has been the worst in American history. The numbers speak for themselves. There have been 8,114,601 encounters at the southwest border under the Biden-Harris administration, excluding known and unknown "got-aways." More than 460,000 individuals from over 77 nations, including nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, have been paroled. Additionally, more than 680,000 entries have occurred through the CBP One app.
But those numbers tell only part of the story. Coming down to the human level, in the streets and communities where Americans actually live, what Harris has presided over is this: families ravaged by fentanyl, streets rendered unsafe by crime, epidemics of homelessness aggravated by tens of millions of illegal immigrants, and the looming end of rule of law.
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The last item is no hyperbole: Harris has gone on record in favor of decriminalizing illegal border crossing, and has even agreed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement should be abolished. Combined with her (admittedly non-border) record raising bail funds for summer-2020 rioters, we have a fairly clear picture of a radical leftist who simply does not believe in the basic principles of law and justice that are the essential prerequisites for American life and society.
A large group of Chinese migrants, including three from Bangladesh, line up for a Customs and Border Patrol officer at Jacumba Hot Spring, California, on June 6, 2024, where the group arrived after crossing the US-Mexico border overnight. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)
This is really what’s at stake in our ongoing border crisis — whether or not America remains a nation with rule of law, and moreover one that prioritizes its own citizens as the proper object of governance. Harris has given her answers, and they are no and no.
Presumably she did so because it is advantageous in the ideological hothouse of American progressivism, which has almost entirely captured the Democratic Party — excepting the handful of Democrats, faithful to their communities, who voted to censure her border-czar record in late July. But it is not advantageous to us, the Americans who must live with her leadership and its failures.
As Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said in his speech at the Republican National Convention, never before has an election mattered as much as it does now, when we are facing an invasion on our southern border. As Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott stated the following day, a president’s most sacred duty is to secure our country, and America needs a president who will secure our border. Harris's record on this issue shows a lack of effective action, further underscoring the urgent need for strong leadership to address these challenges.
Coming down to the human level, in the streets and communities where Americans actually live, what Harris has presided over is this: families ravaged by fentanyl, streets rendered unsafe by crime, epidemics of homelessness aggravated by tens of millions of illegal immigrants, and the looming end of rule of law.
Kamala Harris wants to be president of the United States. Texas knows her record, up close. Come and see it. Come see the trafficked millions who cross, known and unknown, illegally, into our country. Come see the border communities that live in fear of both crime and direct attack from the southern bank of an unsecured border. Come see the cartel lookouts who watch your every move, and occasionally warn you to leave the American soil on which you stand. Come see the human cost of the Harris border.
She won’t run on that record. But the record is here.
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Greg Sindelar is the CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
