“Do not come,” she told potential asylum seekers before laughing off having never visited the border. So much for new beginnings with a new administration.
Vice President Kamala Harris made her first foreign visit to Guatemala and Mexico this week to address the “root causes” of Central American migration to the United States. But, ignoring the intimate role the United States played in developing those root causes, she brusquely told desperate Guatemalans “do not come” to the U.S. and dismissed any controversy over her not visiting America’s southern border by saying she hadn’t been to Europe yet either.
Thus, the daughter of immigrants and the first woman of color to serve as vice president of the United States left zero doubt that she was not the new hope Central Americans had wished she would be.
Harris delivered this “new era” immigration language — which goes against asylum law and President Joe Biden’s promise to both restore the asylum-processing system at our border and bring about long-overdue immigration reform — with as much compassion as the “I really don’t care. Do U?” jacket that former first lady Melania Trump wore on her ride to visit migrant children in a detention camp.
“I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border: Do not come, do not come,” Harris said during a press conference with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei.
“I believe if you come to our border, you will be turned back,” she said.
Biden ostensibly sent Harris 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.” He said she was “the most qualified person to do it.”
But after this trip, it’s clear she is not: Her bad-cop warning to potential migrants went down like a lead balloon in the region and fueled criticism from within her own party back home.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., for instance, called Harris’ statement “disappointing.” (https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/kamala-harris-guatemala-trip-displayed-our-refusal-accept-any-guilt-ncna1270407)
