OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
In a comprehensive report detailing internal conflicts within Team Biden over the ongoing crisis at the border, a former high-ranking Biden official remarked that Vice President Kamala Harris’ efforts on immigration and border issues were “ineffective at best,” while suggesting that Harris did not view addressing these issues as her responsibility.
According to an Axios report, Harris and her team explicitly stated that their focus was solely on addressing the root causes and underlying factors driving immigration from countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras—collectively referred to as the Northern Triangle.
Early in his term, President Joe Biden tasked Harris with addressing what had already become a chaotic border crisis. However, Republicans blame him for it after he reversed all of former President Donald Trump’s highly effective immigration enforcement policies.
“She’s been at best ineffective, and at worst sporadically engaged, not seeing it as her responsibility. It’s an opportunity for her, and she didn’t fill the breach,” a former Biden administration official told the outlet.
In a recent interview with Katie Couric, Harris blamed Republicans for playing politics with the border, to which the interviewer gave her cover for her inability to impact the border crisis one iota.
“Early on, I know you were tasked with understanding the root causes of the immigration crisis, but you’re not in charge of the border, which I think is important to point out,” Couric said.
Fox News added: “Axios also highlighted turmoil within the Biden administration’s handling of the border crisis. The Department of Homeland Security imposed a 100-day pause on deportations on Biden’s first day in office, and the outlet reported that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas opposed the pause at the time. Harris also clashed with former Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice, according to Axios, but both denied the reporting.”
“Rice appeared to others to take pride in being more informed on the border than Harris,” Axios reported. “Some Harris aides found Rice to be disrespectful toward the vice president and dismissively referred to the former UN ambassador as just a ‘staffer.’”
Axios buries the lead: Susan Rice and Kamala Harris clash inside White House.https://t.co/oI6pB4n7rw
— Shadygrooove (@shadygrooove) February 12, 2024
REPORT: Former Obama Adviser Susan Rice is the ‘Central’ Figure in the Biden Administration’s Approach to the Border via @gatewaypundit https://t.co/D8HP7RVCMb
— The Gateway Pundit (@gatewaypundit) February 13, 2024
In addition, Rice called Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra a “bi**h a*s” over “what was seen as his reluctance to find more space in child migrant shelters,” Axios reported.
In January 2023, during a visit to the southern border, Biden expressed criticism towards his aides and “lit into his team,” Axios reported, adding that Biden confronted former Deputy Chief of Staff Jen O’Malley Dillon and Homeland Security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall aboard Air Force One.
The staffers, in turn, expressed frustration with Biden’s “irritability” over the issue, which they claimed made it more difficult for them to make decisions regarding the border and immigration policy.
A recent “bipartisan” border bill died in the Senate after House Republicans said that it did more to fund wars in Ukraine and Israel than to secure the southwestern border.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said it did not take long to realize that the border bill would be “dead on arrival” in the lower chamber.
During an interview on Fox News earlier this month, Johnson spoke with host Laura Ingraham about the border crisis and Biden’s refusal to do much about it.
“There’s no way we could bring this through the House,” Johnson said.
“What it would do is further incentivize illegal immigration. Would not resolve any of the problems. Not reform in any meaningful way the broken asylum system. The broken parole process and all the things that have created this catastrophe. And, by the way, meanwhile, it further empowers the very cabinet secretary who designed and created this mess,” Johnson continued.
“They don’t follow federal law. Why would we do this anyway? But the bill itself would do more harm than good, and that’s why we have said it’s a nonstarter over here in the House,” he added.
