Chris Lange, FISM News
Kamala Harris is blaming Congress for ‘not acting’ on the Biden administration’s immigration reform bill to address the border crisis and says amnesty for migrants is the White House’s top priority. The Vice President and designated U.S. “border czar” made the comments during a Noticias Telemundo interview that aired Wednesday, as reported by the Daily Mail.
When asked why President Biden has been unable to deliver on immigration reform and, further, why Latinos should vote for Democrats in November’s midterm elections, Harris reverted to her familiar modus operandi of deflecting blame, this time fingering Congressional lawmakers.
“The first piece of legislation that was sent to Congress was immigration reform,” Harris said. ‘It was our first initiative to say we must have a pathway to citizenship. The problem is that Congress is not acting.”
Biden’s immigration overhaul legislation would have granted citizenship to more than 11 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. and fast-tracked backlogged visas and employment-based green card requirements. With 10 Republican votes needed in the Senate to pass the bill, however, it seemed doomed from the start.
“The way our democracy works is you need a majority and sometimes in the Senate you need 60 of the 100 to actually act on certain kinds of initiatives. We have to agree first of all this is an essential issue about what is right, what is fair, what is good for the economy in the U.S.” Harris continued.
Under the Biden administration, encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border have reached an all-time high, with 6.1 million encounters reported during the 2021 fiscal year. In March, Harris was designated as the point person tasked with analyzing the root causes of immigration. Since that time, she visited the border only once, back in June, spending a few hours in El Paso, Texas, before heading back to her home in Los Angeles.
“This should not be partisan. We should not allow Republicans or Democrats, if they do stand in the way of it, to get away with this as a partisan issue,” the Vice President continued.
Harris also defended illegal border crossers coming into the U.S., saying, “I believe very strongly that most people do not want to leave home, they don’t want to leave the place where they grew up, where they go to worship, where their grandparents are. When people leave home, it is usually for one of two reasons: either they flee from danger or they just can’t stay and take care of the basic needs of their families.”
Harris traveled to Honduras last week to attend the inauguration of President Xiomara Castro, a member of the country’s Socialist Party, but avoided the U.S.-Mexico border.
Earlier this week, the Republican National Committee issued a scathing rebuke to the Biden administration for refusing to enforce immigration law and prioritizing illegal immigrants, including those who have committed felonies, over law-abiding U.S. citizens, as reported by FISM.