Vice President Kamala Harris pointed a finger at former President Trump as on Friday she made her first visit to the southern border since President Biden appointed her border czar three months ago.
“We inherited a tough situation,” she said, as she noted El Paso is where the controversial child separation policy began under the Trump administration. “In five months we’ve made progress.”
“Our administration — it is important to be clear — is working to build a fair and a functional and a humane immigration system,” Harris said while meeting with faith-based organizations and shelter and legal service providers.
“We have looked at a system where people have been housed in inhumane conditions over the last many years, an asylum system that has been broken and needs to be reconstructed,” Harris said. She also argued that she had visited El Paso over other border regions because it was at the heart of Trump-era immigration restrictions.
“It is here in El Paso that the previous administration’s child separation policy was unveiled. And so we’ve seen the disastrous effects of that right here in this region,” the vice president said during a briefing after her visit. “It is here in El Paso that the Return-to-Mexico policy from the previous administration was implemented. We have seen the disaster that resulted from that here in El Paso.”
