Media

Kamala Harris Claims The Border Is ‘Secure’

[Screenshot/Rumble/NBC News]

Nicole Silverio Media Reporter
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Vice President Kamala Harris assured that the U.S.-Mexico border is “secure” during a “Meet the Press” interview released Sunday.

The vice president told NBC News host Chuck Todd that the “border is secure” and pointed fingers at former President Donald Trump’s administration for the currently “broken immigration system.”

“There is no question that we have to do what the president and I asked Congress to do. The first request we made:pass a bill to create a pathway to citizenship. The border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system and particular[ly] over the last four years before we came in and it needs to be fixed.”

Migrant apprehension numbers have nearly doubled since President Joe Biden assumed office in January 2021. As of July, Border Patrol agents encountered 1.9 million migrants at the southern border in the fiscal-year-to-date (FYTD) 2022, which begins in October, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Agents apprehended 199,976 migrants in July, slightly fewer than the 207,933 that arrived in June. In 2021, 1.73 million migrants in total were encountered at the border.

The vice president said a law needs to be passed to provide migrants with a pathway to citizenship, yet there is no plan because lawmakers are “playing politics.” (RELATED: ‘I Don’t Understand The Point You’re Making’: Harris Deflects When Pressed By NBC On Absence At The Border) 

“We don’t have that in place because people are playing politics in a state like this [Texas] and in Congress. And by the way, you want to talk about bipartisanship on an issue that at one time was a bipartisan issue,” she said. “Both in terms of Republican senators and even presidents.”

Todd said increasing the labor force would combat inflation and therefore push lawmakers to pass legislation to increase immigration. The vice president argued there has been gridlock on the issue of immigration due to the politicization by lawmakers.

She listed a variety of solutions including a pathway to citizenship, “fixing a broken immigration system” and addressing the root causes that lead migrants to attempt entry into the U.S.

“There are solutions, and sadly this has become such a partisan issue, instead of something where we work on it together, agreeing that what we’re doing is not working as a nation. It’s not working,” she concluded.

Harris came under fire in 2021 for not visiting the southern border for 90 days after President Joe Biden appointed her to address the root causes of migration. She visited El Paso, Texas, in June 2021 to tour a Border Patrol facility and a processing center.

She traveled to Mexico and Guatemala in 2021 and met with the nations’ leaders to address the root causes of migration. At a news conference in Guatemala, she told migrants not to come to the U.S., warning of the dangerous journey ahead.