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The migration crisis at the border is escalating and Vice President Kamala Harris is still not accountable for her performance as the Biden administration’s official in charge of addressing the emergency.
Since assuming responsibility for “addressing the root causes” of migration, Harris has only traveled once to the border, is not accountable for her meetings in Guatemala and Mexico, and the situation is worsening.
Last weekend more than 14,000 illegal migrants arrived at the Del Rio International Bridge in Texas, where they decided to set up makeshift tents to await detention by authorities; at the same time officials are struggling to cope with a crisis that seems to worsen as the days go by.
So far the Vice President has only appeared publicly to demand that her own government treat the migrants with “dignity”. However, she has not stated how she will address a situation that is jeopardizing national security and the U.S. asylum system.
While the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, publicly asks migrants not to enter the United States illegally, on the other hand, the authorities release hundreds of thousands of migrants who, despite entering irregularly, allegedly comply with certain requirements.
The seriousness of the situation is that the increase of migrants seems out of control and border authorities cannot keep up, so keeping organized control of who stays and who leaves has become an impossible mission.
Making herself unaccountable
The Biden administration does not report on the number of illegal migrants deported to their home countries, nor how many have been released into the United States. Nor does it offer measures to contain the crisis. Meanwhile, governors like Greg Abbott in Texas are dealing with the contingency in a different way.
This Wednesday, September 22, Abbott signed a bill into law that expands the scope of who can be charged with human trafficking.
The new law amends an earlier statute by making it a third-degree felony to aid or direct more than one person to “to enter or remain on agricultural land without the effective consent of the owner.”
“This all makes it easier to arrest and prosecute human smugglers. This law also increases criminal penalties for human smuggling, especially when payment is involved in that process,” Abbott said at a news conference Wednesday.
But while Abbott addresses human smuggling and drug trafficking penalties in the midst of this immigration crisis, “conspicuous by its absence” are the results of Kamala Harris’s trip to Guatemala and Mexico where she offered millions of dollars to combat illegal migration.
On Monday, April 12, the White House announced border agreements with Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala where supposedly the countries will intensify military presence on their borders to stop migration to the United States.
According to Psaki, Mexico would maintain a presence of 10,000 troops along its southern border. Guatemala will send 1,500 military and police troops to its border with Honduras and the latter “increased to 7,000 police and military to disperse a large contingent of migrants.”
Now, five months later, we are not seeing the results of Kamala Harris as border czar; on the contrary, the crisis is worsening, illegal migrants are increasing and the authorities cannot cope with the situation.
Sabrina Martín Rondon is a Venezuelan journalist. Her source is politics and economics. She is a specialist in corporate communications and is committed to the task of dismantling the supposed benefits of socialism // Sabrina Martín Rondon es periodista venezolana. Su fuente es la política y economía. Es especialista en comunicaciones corporativas y se ha comprometido con la tarea de desmontar las supuestas bondades del socialismo