Republicans slam Vice President Harris ahead of Friday border visit
US Vice President Kamala Harris' announcement that she will travel to the border on Friday has failed to appease her Republican detractors, with some saying she is doing too little, too late.
On Wednesday, the office of the Vice President announced that she'll be traveling to the border at El Paso, Texas on Friday, accompanied by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The announcement follows weeks of pressure from Republicans and Democrats alike, including Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar.
"The President asked the Vice President to oversee our diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration from El Salvador and Guatemala and Honduras," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said at a Wednesday press conference. "This trip to the border on Friday will be part of this effort."
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Psaki added that Harris and other administration officials had always said that she would travel to the border "when it was the right time."
The trip, Psaki said, "is part of the coordinated effort between her office, her work, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, to continue to address the root causes and work in coordination to get the situation under control."
Opponents of the administration, however, continued to criticize her handling of the border crisis following the announcement of her trip, which will come just days before former President Donald Trump travels to the border with Texas Governor Greg Abbott and a group of Republican members of Congress.
Henry Cuellar.
"91 days ago she was named border czar in charge of the border crisis and she demonstrated strong leadership by doing not a damn thing, by going nowhere near the border, by doing everything she could to hide from the crisis," Texas Senator Ted Cruz said on Fox on Wednesday.
"Now, frankly, that's the same thing Joe Biden is doing," Cruz added. "She's emulating the president in hiding from the crisis and so suddenly former President Trump is going to the border and they realize ‘oh crap, we've got to do something',".
Cruz's comments were echoed in a statement by Governor Abbott, who said that Harris is "ignoring the real problem areas along our southern border that are not protected by the border wall and are being overrun by the federal government's ill-thought-out open border policies."
Abbott added that he believes Harris should focus on the Del Rio sector of the border, rather than the El Paso metropolitan area.
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"She will fail in her mission if she refuses to speak to residents of the Del Rio sector whose homes and ranches are being overrun by gangs and smugglers," the statement said.
On Thursday, Harris is scheduled to address s the nation's largest annual gathering of Latino policymakers on Thursday, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO).
Trump, for his part, is scheduled to travel to the border next Wednesday alongside a number of Republicans from the Republican Study Committee, or RSC.