Republicans stepped up their criticism of Vice President Kamala Harris Wednesday, demanding that she visit the Mexico border after footage...
Republicans stepped up their criticism of Vice President Kamala Harris Wednesday, demanding that she visit the Mexico border after footage emerged of a five-year-old boy wailing in distress after being there by two migrant smugglers.
The powerful images highlight the human cost of an issue that bedevils President Biden's administration as Harris prepares to fly to Guatemala and Mexico as part of her role in stemming the arrival of immigrants.
Although Biden tapped her to lead diplomatic efforts, Republicans quickly dubbed her his 'border czar' and want to know why she has not visited the frontier.
Sen. Ted Cruz made his point by sharing a Monty Python and the Holy Grail GIF.
'On the border crisis, Kamala invokes an old leadership style...' he wrote, alongside images of Knights of the Round Table shouting, 'Run away.'
Sen Ted Cruz mocked Vice President Kamala Harris for her work on stemming the flow of arrivals at the border.
Sen. Ted Cruz has repeatedly asked why Vice President Kamala Harris has not traveled to the border since President Joe Biden tapped her to lead efforts to stem flow of arrivals
Vice President Kamala is due to leave for Guatemala on Sunday and is promising to have a 'frank' conversation with President Alejandro Giammattei on corruption, crime and violence that is driving people to leave his country for the United States. She has been under intense pressure for her role as Biden's diplomatic lead on tackling the border crisis
Harris leaves for her trip on Sunday night.
She said she would be meeting the president of Guatemala and had a lot to discuss, 'to support the folks who need help in terms of hunger, the economic development piece, the extreme weather.'
She told reporters Wednesday that she would be there for a 'real' conversation, to listen as much as offer an American perspective.
'It's also about the need to have very frank and honest discussions about the need to address corruption, to address crime, and violence, and in particular against some of the most vulnerable populations in that country,' she said.
After meeting President Alejandro Giammattei on Monday she is due to fly to Mexico, where she will meet with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
It marks her first foreign trip since becoming vice president.
In March, Biden gave her responsibility for leading the administration's diplomatic efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala - reprising his own role under President Obama.
But she has been under intense scrutiny ever since.
Critics are demanding to know why she has gone 70 days without holding a news conference on the issue at a time when illegal border are at a 21-year high.
Vice President Kamala Harris poses with Eric Lander and his family after she swore him in as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, on Wednesday, when she also outlined her plans for her trip to Guatemala and Mexico
Data released recently by U.S. Customs and Border Protection revealed officers encountered 178,622 people trying to enter the country in April, the highest since April 2000.
Republicans say the surge coincided with Biden's election victory, a softening of rhetoric on immigrants and the removal of Trump administration kerbs on immigration.
On Tuesday, the Biden administration formally ended a Trump immigration policy that forced asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court.
It comes as video circulates of a particularly heartbreaking moment on the border.
The cellphone footage shows a five-year-old boy, who is believed to be Mexican, being dumped by smugglers who apparently expected his parents to collect him.
He is standing steps away from where the steel, barbed wired wall came to an end under an overpass at the international borderline between the border town of Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, Texas, last Thursday night.
The distraught boy clutched on to a teddy bear and yelled, 'Where are you going? Over here. No, no, no. Don't leave.'
The child was accompanied by the couple who crossed him over a section of a nearly dry Rio Grande, a waterway that's constantly used by migrants attempting to reach the U.S.
Amidst tears, the boy attempted to draw the their attention by waving at them as they walked away.
Still image of a five-year-old boy who was abandoned by a man and a woman last Thursday near a steel, barbed wire wall at the United States-Mexico international crossing between Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas. The woman who helped smuggle the child told AFP that his parents reside in the U.S. The child is said to be a native of Mexico
A man (left) and woman (right) head back to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, moments after they were captured on video abandoning a five-year-old boy at section of the United States-Mexico border wall in Texas
The woman and her accomplice subsequently fled towards Ciudad Juárez. Moments later, a U.S. Border Patrol unit arrived and took the boy to a nearby station.
The woman who smuggled the boy to the border wall told AFP that his parents resided in the United States.
DailyMail.com reached out to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for comment. It is unclear if the child has since been reunited with his family.
The harrowing scene of the child crying is the latest chapter of the ongoing saga at the southwestern border between U.S. Border Patrol agents and unaccompanied children as well as individuals and families seeking asylum from the United States government.
Arrests of undocumented migrants trying to cross the international borderline increased gradually during the last 12 months under former President Donald Trump's administration and his successor, President Joe Biden.
The child tried to draw his smugglers' attention by waving at them before U.S. Border Patrol agents arrived and took him to a nearby station
U.S. Border Patrol agents tend to a five-year-old boy after he was spotted alone at the side of a border wall in El Paso, Texas, last Thursday
A monthly report released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in May showed that border agents detained 17,171 unaccompanied children at the southwestern border in April, down 9 percent from 18,890 in March when a record number of unaccompanied migrant children entered U.S. custody.
The Biden administration, which has shown a willingness to allow migrants at the southwestern border to apply for asylum, has permitted unaccompanied minors to remain in the U.S. under the Title 42 policy.
The measure was put into place March 21, 2020 by Trump and pushed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to immediately removed migrants who were intercepted at the southwestern border due to the COVID-19 pandemic without granting them the opportunity to request asylum. The agency would send adults back to Mexico and the children would be placed in hotels and then deported to their home countries.
Under Biden, CBP continues expel most of the migrant families and single adults, ultimately forcing parents to send their children alone across the border in hopes of joining them later. In other cases family members already in the U.S. are given custody of the children.
Nicaraguan Wilto Obregón, 10, who in April was seen in a video begging an off-duty U.S. Border Patrol to help him after he had been left behind by a group of migrants near the Texas desert, was reunited with his mother Meylin Obregón at a shelter for migrant children last Friday.
Two Guatemalan sisters, Asheli Sánchez, 5, and Valeria Padilla, 11 months, were placed in the custody of their aunt Yolanda Sánchez in Texas, after the married couple discovered the two children and three other girls on their farmland the morning of May 9.
No comments