Doocy asked Jean-Pierre about Harris’ campaign promise to add more border guards to stop people from coming into the U.S. illegally. President Joe Biden put the vice president in charge of addressing the “root causes” of migration in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries in March 2021. During her time in the administration and as a U.S. senator, she changed her mind several times about how she felt about illegal immigration.
“How long have you guys known that Vice President Kamala Harris does not think President Biden is doing a good job at the border?” Doocy asked, followed by Jean-Pierre asking him to repeat the question. “Well, she’s now promising to hire thousands more border agents than there are now under President Biden.”
Jean-Pierre went on to accuse Doocy of interpreting Harris’ beliefs and accused congressional Republicans and Republican nominee Donald Trump of “getting in the way” of adding more agents to the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The president does want more Border Patrol agents,” Jean-Pierre said. “You know who’s getting in the way? Republicans in Congress. They’re getting in the way. You know who else is getting in the way? The former president, Donald Trump. He’s getting in the way. I mean, there’s no daylight here. I’m not getting the question because there’s no daylight. The president believes that as well and he’s worked toward doing that.”
Jean-Pierre talked about the Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, which was meant to give money to hire more Border Patrol agents and immigration judges to speed up the process of immigration.
The law also wanted to get rid of foreigners who came to the U.S. illegally when the average number of people coming in each day for a week was more than 5,000.
In a 49-50 vote on February 7, Senate Republicans stopped the bill from moving forward. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said the bill would be “dead on arrival” in the House.
A lot of ads from Harris’s campaign say that the vice president plans to make the border safer and ease the problem. In a July ad, Harris is said to back up hiring more Border Patrol agents, using new technology to stop drugs from coming into the U.S. and spending more money to stop people from being trafficked.
Harris was the “border czar,” and Rodney Scott was the head of the Border Patrol during that time. On August 8, Scott told the Daily Caller News Foundation that Harris never talked to him.
Scott also told the DCNF that the Biden-Harris administration “redirected millions and millions” from enforcement operations to let more illegal immigrants into the U.S. He also said that the administration was giving taxpayer money to NGOs so that they could fly more illegal immigrants to “wherever they want to go” instead of putting enforcement first.
NumbersUSA, a group that wants more “sensible immigration,” gave Harris an F- grade because she voted for several bills that the group says would have made border security less strong.
Harris, when she was a senator in 2018, said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was like the Ku Klux Klan and that the agency should be gotten rid of. She also said that she thought illegal aliens should be able to get health insurance in 2020.
