VP Harris border visit rebuked for being far from ‘where the height of the problem is’

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Lawmakers denounced Vice President Kamala Harris’ border visit for being far from the ‘epicenter’ of the crisis.
• Harris is expected to visit El Paso, Texas on Friday instead of more high-activity areas along the border.
• Sen. Ted Cruz said Harris “need[s] to look at the children in cages” while Rep. Henry Cuellar said the VP is “not going to get a true picture of what’s happening.”

President Joe Biden praised Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of her trip to the US-Mexico border.

On Thursday, the president told reporters Harris has “done a great job so far” on the issue despite waiting for over three months to visit the troubled region.

“The reason why it’s important that she go down [is] she’s now set up the criteria, having spoken with the president of Mexico and Guatemala [and] visited the region, to know what we need to do,” said Biden.

The trip comes as the vice president has been heavily criticized for not traveling to the southern border since she was tapped by Biden to deal with the “root causes” of the migration crisis.

Harris is rebuked by lawmakers for visiting El Paso, Texas which has been less affected by the crisis than the Rio Grande Valley.

“She’s going where the height of the problem isn’t,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told Fox News Wednesday.

According to Cruz, Harris needs to visit McAllen and Donna in Texas where a tent city the “administration has built… is massively overcapacity.”

“You need to look at the children in cages that you and Joe Biden put there in a way that is endangering their safety and subjecting them to abuse and sexual assault,” Cruz added.

Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar rebuked Harris on Fox News Thursday, saying that the VP’s advisers had likely opted for a “politically safer” trip by visiting El Paso.

“The epicenter is down there in the Lower Rio Grande, the lower part of my district down there. If you look at the numbers that are down there compared to El Paso, you’re not going to get a true picture of what’s happening,” Cuellar said.

Cuellar added that despite inviting Harris to visit the border many times, he only heard of her visit through the news media.

The White House has also been accused of scheduling Harris’ border visit in response to a planned trip to the area by former President Donald Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on June 30.

“We made an assessment within our government about when it was an appropriate time for her to go to the border,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in response to questioning from Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy.

Source: Fox News