Daily Caller
Harris Took The Reins On Solving A Key Region’s Migrant Crisis — Nearly 1.8 Million People Crossed Into US Anyway
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
Over a million migrants hailing from Central America have crossed illegally into the U.S. since Vice President Kamala Harris was tapped to address the illegal immigration crisis stemming from that region.
Since the launch of her presidential campaign, Harris and her allies have vehemently pushed back on the narrative that she was appointed to serve as “border czar” for the White House, arguing that she was only given a limited role addressing the “root causes” of illegal migration stemming from Central America. However, roughly 1.7 million people from the Northern Triangle region, which includes El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, flooded into the U.S. after she was tasked with mitigating the crisis.
“It’s total chaos on the border, and has been for the last three and a half years,” retired Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott said about the current border situation to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “America is put at risk for no good reason and they’re being sold a bill of goods that’s just not true.”
Border Patrol agents deployed along the southern border encountered a total of 1,739,795 migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras attempting to cross illegally into the country between April 2021 — Harris’ first full month serving as “border czar” — and June 2024, according to a review of the latest available data by Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
“I’ve asked her, the VP, today — because she’s the most qualified person to do it — to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and the countries that help — are going to need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border,” Biden publicly declared on March 24, 2021.
The president added that there was nobody “better qualified” to handle the task and said she wouldn’t have to check in with him because she “knows what she’s doing.”
“But — so, Madam Vice President, thank you. I gave you a tough job, and you’re smiling, but there’s no one better capable of trying to organize this for us,” Biden continued.
Since that speech was given, 253,027 illegal migrants from El Salvador, 798,678 illegal migrants from Guatemala and 688,090 illegal migrants from Honduras have descended on the U.S.-Mexico border — totaling the more than 1.7 million encounters, according to CBP data. The numbers under Harris’ “border czar” tenure surpass the roughly 1,098,000 Border Patrol apprehensions of these three nationalities seen under the Trump administration from fiscal year 2017 to fiscal year 2020, according to past CBP data.
What further exacerbated the immigration crisis under the Biden-Harris administration was the influx of other foreign nationals who have used Central America as a way station en route to the U.S. border — most notably Venezuelans. While non-Central Americans did not technically fall under the vice president’s purview, the lack of border enforcement in the region has skyrocketed the U.S. asylum crisis.
Less than 50,000 Venezuelan nationals were encountered by Border Patrol agents in fiscal year 2021, according to CBP data. That number blew up to more than 187,000 in fiscal year 2022 and peaked at more than 200,600 in fiscal year 2023.
Venezuelans are far from the only ones crossing the Central American region in their journey to illegally enter the U.S. More than half a million U.S.-bound migrants crossed the Darien Gap — a dense jungle that spans across the border of Panama and Colombia — in 2023 alone, according to the Council on Foreign Relations
Illegal border crossings from other nationalities have also exploded under Harris’ “border czar” tenure.
There were less than 2,000 encounters with Chinese nationals at the southern border in fiscal year 2022, according to CBP Data. That figure exploded to over 24,000 in fiscal year 2023 and has already surpassed 33,000 this fiscal year, despite the year not yet over.
Similar spikes in illegal southern border crossings took place under the Biden-Harris administration by Indians, Turks, Nicaraguans, Russians and other nationalities.
Republicans have long hammered Harris for allegedly not taking the border crisis seriously, and recently released surveys indicate that most Americans believe her to be supportive of “open borders.”
For her part, Harris did visit Central America in June 2021 and warned would-be illegal migrants: “Do not come. Do not come.” She also visited the U.S.-Mexico border once in June 2021 after facing mounting pressure to do so.
Since Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential contest and Harris became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, she has attempted to cast herself as a tough-on-crime prosecutor who would govern with border hawk tendencies. Her campaign has released two different advertisements claiming she would “fix” the border crisis and hire more Border Patrol agents.
Harris previously supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings, but the latest statements from her campaign suggest she has completely flipped on the position. It’s also not immediately clear if her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, remains a supporter of sanctuary city policies.
“The truth is, Vice President Kamala Harris has always been for open borders. She can’t run from that,” said Joey Chester, communications manager for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, in a statement to the DCNF.
Chester listed Harris’ past opposition for a border wall, rejection of more funding for Border Patrol agents and detention beds and past support for DACA beneficiaries to be compensated as congressional employees as reasons to be suspect of her current pivot to the right on border enforcement.
“These policies have proven disastrous and are deeply unpopular with the American people,” he added. “Words can’t change the fact that the current state of America’s borders, and the influx of illegal aliens in the United States today, is the doing of President Biden and Vice President Harris.”
The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Flickr/Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Newt Gingrich
In an amazing show of courage, Vice President J.D. Vance offered an intervention for some of our European allies.
That is the best way to think of the two historic speeches he made in France and Germany last week.
In Paris, Vice President Vance pledged the United States would do whatever it takes to lead the world in the development of Artificial Intelligence. He went on to assert that Europe’s automatic response to regulate technological change rather than adapt to it was doomed to fail.
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Vance warned the Europeans that the Trump administration would retaliate to protect American high-tech companies from being fined and regulated by the European community.
Then, Vance went to the Munich Security Conference. It is the annual meeting of European leaders concerned about defense and threats to peace. The Vice President shocked the Europeans by launching a frontal assault on the decay of their political system.
As Vance put it:
“But while the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine, and we also believe that it’s important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defense, the threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values — values shared with the United States of America.”
He then went through a litany of specific complaints about the behavior of different European countries. They ranged from failing to control immigration, suppressing free speech, and Brussels seeking to control and define futures of independent countries such as Hungary and Romania.
The leading French newspaper, Le Monde (their equivalent of the New York Times) asserted that the American Vice President was declaring “ideological war on Europe.”
Le Monde was right. The European elites have been decaying for at least two generations. They hide behind their privileged status and take ideological positions that feel good but are destructive. Europe’s failures are devastating for most everyday Europeans.
I have personal knowledge about this. I have a Ph.D. in Modern European History – and I have lived in France, Germany, Belgium and Italy. As a young Army dependent, we were living in France when the French Army came back from Algeria, killed the French Fourth Republic and brought back General Charles de Gaulle to establish the Fifth Republic.
It is now the longest serving non-royal government in French history.
The European elites value each other’s opinions more than they value serving the people of Europe. The European elites live in a fantasy world of green policies that destroy industries and jobs, welfare policies which destroy the work ethic, and immigration policies which undermine the popular culture. They simply hope for a peaceful world without a strong military.
Meanwhile, state enforced speech codes protect Islamic extremists at the expense of local citizens.
The result has been a steady decline of European culture, economic development, and defensive capacity.
The Afghan Islamist who wounded more than two dozen people and killed a mother and her two-year-old daughter with a car two days before the supposed security conference signals the willful avoidance of reality at the heart of the elite European worldview.
To be clear, I admire European civilization. I believe America is far stronger and safer if Europe is healthy and capable of growing and defending itself.
I hope vice president Vance’s intervention at least starts European elites thinking about what must be done to revive their continent.
For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. Also subscribe to the Newt’s World podcast.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Mariane Angela
President Donald Trump announced Friday the dismissal of General Charles Brown, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump expressed his gratitude toward Brown for his extensive contributions and leadership, wishing him and his family a prosperous future. Brown’s departure marks a pivotal moment in U.S. military leadership following over 40 years of service.
“I want to thank General Charles “CQ” Brown for his over 40 years of service to our country, including as our current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader, and I wish a great future for him and his family,” Trump wrote.
Simultaneously, Trump introduced his nominee for Brown’s successor.
“Today, I am honored to announce that I am nominating Air Force Lieutenant General Dan “Razin” Caine to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Caine is an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a “warfighter” with significant interagency and special operations experience,” Trump said.
Trump said Caine’s appointment comes after he was overlooked for advancement during former President Joe Biden’s presidency.
“General Caine was passed over for promotion by Sleepy Joe Biden. But not anymore! Alongside Secretary Pete Hegseth, General Caine and our military will restore peace through strength, put America First, and rebuild our military,” Trump said. President Trump also announced plans to appoint five additional senior military officials, tasks he has delegated to Secretary Hegseth.
It was reported Thursday that Hegseth plans to dismiss Brown as part of President Trump’s commitment to eliminate “wokeness” from the military. Brown reportedly appears on a list of proposed removals submitted to Congress.
Brown had previously expressed his wish to retain his position even after Trump took office, and according to sources speaking to NBC News in Dec. 2024, Trump seemingly moderated his views on the general. Biden nominated Brown as chairman in 2023, and despite a heated confirmation hearing where senators scrutinized his alleged implementation of racial quotas in Air Force hiring practices, he was confirmed.
Meanwhile, Brown’s replacement, Caine, took office as the associate director for Military Affairs at the CIA on Nov. 3, 2021, after serving as the director of Special Programs at the Pentagon. Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, an F-16 pilot with extensive experience including over 150 combat hours, was commissioned in 1990 and has held numerous key roles, from the White House staff to special operations, and balances his military career with entrepreneurial ventures.
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