Deputized to “fix” the migrant surge crisis, Vice President Kamala Harris has no plans to visit the US-Mexico border — but Donald Trump may go there “soon,” according to an aide to the former president.
Harris was tapped by President Biden to lead talks with Latin American countries about the crisis earlier this week and is now focused on diplomatic efforts to reduce the wave of Central American immigrants seeking refuge in the US.
“The vice president is not doing the border,” spokeswoman Symone Sanders told reporters Friday.
“You can expect she will be speaking with leaders from the region in the near future,” Sanders said.
Meanwhile, the former president is considering a visit to the overwhelmed boundary “soon” as he eyes a comeback on the public stage — but first wants to give Biden space to “fail on his own,” Trump aide Jason Miller said on “The Michael Berry Show” Thursday.
“I think there’s a very fine line between calling someone out on policies and then appearing to do something that’s showboating or give Joe Biden an opportunity to point and say, ‘See this isn’t serious, look at President Trump down at the border making a scene out of this’,” Miller said on the podcast.
The White House is backing a plan to send $7 billion to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to help alleviate the poverty and violence that has refugees fleeing the Northern Triangle countries en masse.
Federal agents apprehended more than 100,000 people at the border last month alone, the highest number in two years. President Biden has warned migrants not to come, citing COVID-19 restrictions.
Many have not heeded the message, hoping for better odds of being granted asylum under the new administration, after Biden reversed Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy and halted construction on a border wall.
Unaccompanied minors are not being turned away, however, with nearly 12,000 children currently in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a report.
President Biden is also in no rush to head south; he said earlier this week he plans to get an in-person look at the situation “at some point.”
While Washington dignitaries keep their distance from the border, The Post has documented the conditions up close in a series of reports about the harrowing journey made by migrants, who told stories of being held for ransom at Texas stash houses by unscrupulous smugglers.
With AP wires
