VP Harris Blames Border Crisis On Climate Change

It has been nearly five weeks since Vice President Kamala Harris was appointed the ‘Border Czar’ by President Joe Biden to tackle the surge of migrants crossing into the country, but she has yet to deliver any major speech or press conferences on the matter. Harris, along with Biden, hasn’t even visited the Border themselves yet. They pretend that the border crisis does not exist unless they are referring to the Trump era, in which everything is a crisis.

VP Harris made her first remarks on the issue at the 51st Annual Washington Conference on the Americas in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She gave a 13-minute speech outlining the importance of tackling ‘root causes’ of migration to the U.S and announced plans of sending $310 million in aid to Central America and another $4 billion to the region over the next four years. She said the funds will deliver food, shelter, and water to the people of Honduras and Guatemala, as well as help farmers plant drought-resistant crops and increase their crops. She did not provide further details on the funds.

You can watch the full speech here.

Harris notes “climate change” as the root cause of the Border Crisis and claimed that most people in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras do not want to leave their homes and communities. She argued that the recent hurricanes in Central America are one of the “driving factors” in the surge of migrants crossing the border, even though migrants have told reporters they traveled to the U.S because of Biden’s campaign promises. She also cited COVID-19 and government corruption from the Northern Triangle countries for playing a role in the border crisis.

Border security agents, however, have also noted that Biden’s rollback of Trump immigration policies and the change in presidential office has led to the record-breaking numbers of migrants at the Southern Border. Biden removed specific Trump-era implementations including the construction of the Border Wall and the Migrant Protection Protocols, otherwise known as the “Remain In Mexico” program. They also pointed to Biden’s decision not to apply Title 42 public health protections to unaccompanied children as reasons for the surge. In March, more than 171,000 illegal immigrants crossed the border. Nearly 17,000 of those migrants were unaccompanied children.

“We want to help people find hope at home, and so we are focused on addressing both the acute factors and the root causes of migration. First, the acute factors, the catastrophes that are causing people to leave right now; the hurricanes, the pandemic, the drought, and extreme food insecurity. Then there are the long-standing issues, the root causes. I’m thinking of corruption, violence and poverty, the lack of economic opportunity, the lack of climate adaptation and climate resilience, the lack of good governance,” Harris said.

She also noted Biden’s comprehensive strategy to work with other governments and private sectors to address the root causes of migration. She said she’d recently spoken to world leaders from Japan, Finland, and Ireland about partnering with the U.S to help the Northern Triangle countries.

But Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke and Speaker Pro Tempore Tyler August said VP Harris is failing in her duties by refusing to visit the border herself. She even made a recent trip to Wisconsin to tout the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 recovery plans but has still made no plans to head to the border. “It’s great that she’s here in Wisconsin but the border is on fire. Our country is being invaded; that’s not our words, that’s the words of local law enforcement in that area,” Steineke said.

Former DHS Acting Secretary Chad Wolf called it “unbelievable” that the president or the vice president have not gone down to the Border yet. He said he understands that the president is busy, but questions by Border Czar Harris hasn’t taken the trip herself.

“The vice president should be down at that border, understanding what is going on, talking to the law enforcement, talking to the men and women, talking to the sheriffs, talking to the ranchers, and understanding the impact that much illegal immigration per month is having on those communities down there,” Wolf said.

While Harris has announced plans to visit the Northern Triangle region of Central America in June, she has not addressed any plans for visiting the Border. This is nothing but leftist leadership on display. All talk and no plans to protect the American people.