With Vice President Kamala Harris poised to become the Democratic standard bearer, the media has rushed to flush her title of "Border czar" down a memory hole, a role upon which Republicans have seized to launch a volley of attacks on her record.
Harris received the appointment from the White House in early 2021, at which time media outlets did refer to her as the "Border czar." The exact parameters of her role were somewhat unclear and Harris's then-chief spokeswoman, Symone Sanders, insisted at the time that Harris was "Not doing the border" and would "Take on the diplomatic effort, with Mexico and countries in the northern triangle to address the root causes of migration." Despite "Not doing the border," Harris ultimately visited the border city of El Paso, Texas, in June 2021 and toured a U.S. Customs and Border Protection migrant processing center.
Republicans, for their part, have latched on to the "Border czar" label for Harris, doing so well before she emerged as the presumptive Democratic nominee.
During a Tuesday roundtable with former Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., on CNN, former Obama advisor and CNN commentator David Axelrod attempted to correct Zelding and claim that "She wasn't the border czar. She was assigned to go to the countries that were the source of these immigrants and try to work with them to remove inducements for people to come here." "But she never was the border czar. She wasn't in charge of the border," he went on.
"It's gonna be very hard for Kamala Harris right now to say 'I wasn't the border czar. I'm not responsible for these policies.' She hasn't spoken up at all against the implementation of any of this," Zeldin added.
Axios tries to erase history Left-leaning news outlet Axios on Wednesday attempted to argue a similar point to Axelrod, saying that Harris "Never actually had" the title of "Border czar" and that the designation had merely become a derogatory label en vogue with her Republican opponents.
Axios' 2024 article now features an "Editor's Note" reading tagged to the story that says "This article has been updated and clarified to note that Axios was among the news outlets that incorrectly labeled Harris a 'border czar' back in 2021." PolitiFact PolitiFact this week addressed claims that Biden appointed Harris to serve as "Border czar" and tasked her with curtailing illegal immigration.
The outlet rated the claim as "Mostly false," asserting that Biden had asked Harris to serve as "Chief diplomatic officer with Central American countries" and that the task of border security had remained with the Secretary of Homeland Security.
Calling the title "Misleading", Time now says that her role was simply to "Focus on examining and improving the underlying conditions in the Northern Triangle of Central America-El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras." As part of her role, Harris paid a single visit to the southern border in El Paso, Texas, in June 2021.
The label isn't going anywhere The Trump campaign, for its part, has focused on the "Border czar" label, releasing an ad this week calling here a "Complete failure as border czar." Included in the ad were clips of Harris discussing the situation at the border interspersed with reports of criminal activity from illegal immigrants.
"Border Czar Harris owns the bloodbath at the southern border, including the rape, murder, and brutal assault of women like Rachel Morin and Laken Riley." "Try as they might, Kamala and her allies can't change reality: she is responsible for the flood of migrant crime and deadly fentanyl into our country, and Americans will hold her accountable when they vote for President Trump in November," Alvarez continued.
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