Vice President Harris mostly avoids discussing border during visit to border

EL PASO, Texas (KOSA) - Vice President Kamala Harris was in El Paso Friday for her first visit to the border, nearly three months after being appointed by President Biden to lead the administration’s effort to deal with the border crisis.

The visit was met with skepticism.

“The government is not listening to us. They’re not listening to their own people. Their own agents. Their border patrol. Their homeland security. They’re not listening,” said Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson.

In Harris’ brief stop in El Paso, she barely touched on what’s happening at the American border but rather repeatedly brought up what’s happening in countries like Guatemala and Mexico.

She said what she saw in El Paso confirmed her belief in addressing the border crisis in the countries the migrants are fleeing.

“My trip to Guatemala and Mexico was about addressing root causes,” Harris said. “The stories that I heard and the interactions we had today reinforced the nature of those root causes.”

During a press conference after her El Paso visit, Harris did not address what – if anything – will be done to help border communities within the United States.

Republicans seized on Harris’ visit to El Paso instead of more severely affected communities to the southeast. Texas Rep. August Pfluger said the Biden administration’s focus on those “root causes” ignores the problems the crisis is causing to actual Americans.

Until the policies are reviewed, and until she gets face-to-face with the border patrol agents who are working every single day and risking their lives to secure our country and not being given and not being given the resources from the federal government,” Pfluger said. “Until that happens and until the policies are reversed, the job is not going to be done.”

Sheriff Dodson agreed.

“She needs to go on down to the Rio Grande Valley and look at that because it is constant,” Dodson said. “It’s a steady stream.”

But even if Harris does eventually visit the more severely affected portions of the border, Dodson doesn’t see anything changing.

“Every senator and every congressman that’s ever come to my area, they see the problem,” Dodson said. “I mean, they see it. But when they get back to Washington—I don’t know who they see or what goes on—but we really get nothing done.”

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