US ELECTION 2024
Find out why Kamala Harris was never the “border tsar” and what her real record on immigration is
Harris earned her criticism for her work on immigration, but it isn’t completely fair to judge her on the
“This is America’s border tsar,” Trump’s first television advertisement announced over images of Kamala Harris, “and she’s failed us.”
Immigration has consistently ranked as one of the most important issues to voters this election so it is not a surprise that Kamala Harris’ political opponents took the opportunity to take a swipe at her.
While their moniker may not technically be true, a tsar in politics being someone given broad powers to address an issue, Harris was tasked withdealing with a specific part of the policy issue.
Once President Biden took office in January 2021, he was faced with a significant increase in the flow of migrants at the country’s southern border. In March of that same year, he delegated the task of addressing the root causes of migration to Kamala Harris, which is where the moniker of tsar comes from.
During his tenure, Harris promoted private investment in the Northern Triangle countries with the goal of strengthening their economies and discouraging migrants from traveling to the United States, creating new alternatives to migration. This plan has not been fully realised, but in FY 2023, US Border Patrol encountered more than 447,000 foreign nationals from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras crossing the Southwest border.
In being in charge of this specific mission, the vice president has been linked to “mishandling the border crisis,” a stance that has been seized upon by her political critics and opponents, who have singled her out as being responsible for the migration crisis at the southern border now it is election season.
What is Kamala Harris’ real immigration record?
Harris’ supporters point to her leadership in attracting investment to a region with major economic challenges. According to Ricardo Zúniga, a former State Department official specializing in the Northern Triangle, Harris has used his position to build trust among investors, seeking to reduce migration through economic development. However, her raising of $5 billion according to soures is dwarved by the annual remittance payments from the US of nearly eight times that amount.
Critics argue that Harris could have taken a more forceful and effective stance in the short term. There are also those who question Harris’ effectiveness in pressuring Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries to strengthen their immigration policies.
Democrats, including the vice president, have called Donald Trump’s border wall a “vanity project” that wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. However, Harris has included a similar measure in her border security plan. The presidential candidate has proposed filling in sections of the wall along the nearly 2,000-mile southwest border.