Vice President Kamala Harris is dodging a Wednesday request by President Joe Biden to bolster the enforcement of migration laws in Mexico and Latin American countries.
On March 24, in a televised statement, Biden directed Harris to get the Mexican and Central American governments to forcibly block poor migrants moving towards the United States. Biden said: “The Vice President … agreed to lead our diplomatic effort and work with those nations to accept returnees and enhance migration enforcement at their borders — at their borders.” [emphasis added]
Biden said that Harris would work with “the countries that need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border,” and added that it was a “tough job.”
On Friday, Symone Sanders, Harris’s press secretary, redefined the request.
“The president asked the vice president to take on the diplomatic effort, with Mexico and countries in the northern triangle to address the root causes of migration,” she said. “There are many reasons that move these folks to make this dangerous journey.”
“This is an amazing dismissal by a vice president of her president in a very public fashion,” said Ken Cuccinelli, who served as deputy homeland security chief under President Donald Trump. “I cannot ever remember seeing this happen before.”
