As the border crisis gets worse, the president is beginning to realize that this is an issue that could ruin his presidency. And when presidents get in trouble, they cast about looking for someone that he could blame if things really go south.
Forget about Harry Truman and “the buck stops here” in the Oval Office. The buck stops where the president wants it to. And Joe Biden is dropping this border crisis like a hot potato.
Right into the lap of his Vice President Kamala Harris — who laughed when asked if she was going to visit the border.
“This increase has been consequential,” the president said at an afternoon event announcing the move. “I can’t think of nobody who is better qualified than, this a woman who led the second-biggest attorney general’s office in America,” he said, referring to her time as California’s AG.
Yes, but don’t call it a crisis, Kamala.
For her part, the new migration czar said “there’s no question that this is a challenging situation,” adding: “While we are clear that people should not come to the border now, we also understand that we will enforce the law.” Both leaders said their administration will attempt to help the Central American countries from which migrants are coming deal with problems there.
The near-failed and failed states these migrants are coming from aren’t going to be fixed by a few anti-poverty and anti-crime measures. This will be an Afghanistan-sized reconstruction effort. And we didn’t even send anyone to fight there.
Harris will lead the administration’s efforts with Mexico and the Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras “to stem migration to the southern border,” a senior White House official told reporters on Wednesday, “picking up the mantle” of Biden’s own efforts in the region.
Her focus will be on working with regional leaders on “making it safer for people to stay at home to access asylum in the region to access legal pathways that the administration is working hard to stand up,” a separate official said.
She will work “first on the goal of stemming the flow of irregular migrants to the U.S.,” as well as to establish a strategic partnership with the Northern Triangle countries.
This is all well and good, but if the Biden administration only wants to make it “safer” for asylum seekers, the actual problem of too many people wanting to come into the United States won’t be solved. It will be made worse.
Putting Vice President Harris in charge of the border might be good politics but it hardly changes anything. People are still showing up at the border, unaccompanied children are still coming. If Biden wants a handy scapegoat if things really go south, perhaps he should blame himself and his ruinous policies.
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