Kamala Harris and Guatemala

FAIR's Matthew Tragesser and Spencer Raley are joined by Townhall.com's senior writer Julio Rosas to discuss Vice President Harris's recent trip, not to the border of course, to Guatemala.

Show Notes

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Matthew:
welcome back to another episode of FAIR’s understanding immigration podcast this is Matthew Tragesser FAIR’s press secretary and I’m joined by FAIR’s director of research Spencer Raley today today we'll be discussing Vice President Kamala Harris’ recent trip to Guatemala and Mexico and even though it was her first trip overseas as Vice President Harris' trip can only be described as a flop she was criticized by both the left and the right for her actions and words during her stay it actually may have even further strained relations with the two countries in just a couple of days she confirmed that she's the wrong person to help manage and fix one of the worst border and humanitarian crises in history please stay tuned for the entire episode we have a very special guest at the end of the of this episode to talk about this trip it is Julio Rosas from townhall.com and he'll be joining us after we finish this segment so spencer let me start off with you here this trip was a flat out disaster can you recap briefly what happened in Guatemala specifically why did Harris go down there in the first place?

Spencer:
well the entire intent of this trip was for Harris to have a discussion with the leaders in Guatemala about the root causes of immigration because as we've seen the Biden administration has shown time and time again they're not going to address illegal immigration in the United States their theory which has been proven wrong throughout history is that they can solve this by throwing money at foreign countries they can you know invest in you know Guatemala Honduras other countries in the northern triangle Mexico and that'll cause people to stay in their country instead of pursuing opportunity in the United States however this did not work out as they planned as soon as Harris got off the plane she was met by Guatemalans with signs saying things like go home mind your own business and even Trump won which honestly was a clear message that they are not happy with the impact that the Biden administration’s immigration policies are having on their home country they're essentially saying if you truly want to fix the root causes of migration stop incentivizing illegal immigration stop encouraging people to give up on their home country and quite frankly it did not go much better whenever she had her meeting with President Alejandro Giammattei before that meeting began he went on CBS and noted that the current administration is clearly at fault for the current border crisis he said the message changed to we're going to reunite families we're going to reunite children and the very next day coyotes were here in Guatemala organizing groups of children to take them to the United States he later said we have asked the United States government to send a clear message to prevent more people from leaving so this did not go well at all and Harris was quite clearly and obviously rattled by all the negative press because she countered both the administration's agenda as well as her past words by telling migrants not to come to the United States and that laughably America will enforce our border laws which honestly makes no sense it's not consistent with other messaging from the administration because they have been openly inviting illegal aliens to the United States both by changing policies and dismantling law enforcement mechanisms and even with their words I mean Harris herself said everyone is welcomed here whenever she was talking about illegal immigration back in 2017 and indeed all the administration's policies back that illegal entries are at all-time highs right now we just saw 180,000 last month which is the highest total since 2000 more than 20 years and deportations including the deportation of criminals are reaching all-time lows and remarkably the disaster of this trip did not end there because Harris then went on NBC and lied when Lester Holt asked her when she planned to visit the southern border and she just straight up lied and said we've been to the border and after Holt didn't let this slide and caught her in it and noted that this is obviously not true she laughed in very Kamala Harris style and said well I also haven't been to Europe now Matthew I’ve only worked in immigration pretty much my whole career so what do I know the last I checked we're not experiencing a humanitarian immigration crisis with France and Belgium so honestly I think Harris has just expected that Americans will get on board with anything she does and apparently believe that a policy narrative if we just do everything the opposite of trump would actually satisfy Americans who are concerned about their jobs and concerned about their health and safety and the health and safety of their families and this is evidenced by the fact that she has no other answer than just nervous cackling whenever she's asked a valid and serious question about how she's going to address this border crisis

Matthew:
no I totally agree and that was a great run down there Spencer I mean this was a really disappointing trip and it was a very short one too and you know I get it it was her first overseas trip and there's a lot of different nuances and different things to worry about but this was almost as bad as it could be I mean just from you know as soon as she landed didn't receive warm welcomes her messaging remains confusing and almost conflicting she appeared tone deaf and in many circumstances she botched the interview with Lester Holt on NBC you mentioned that you know it just it's almost like it was unbelievable what happened in just that short time frame

Spencer:
and I think just kind of building on that she didn't convince even her own party you know her own party has gone from saying you know coming United States illegally be rewarded and then she went down there and tried to counter that own messaging and even managed to lose some of the support in her own party with AOC even saying that the trip was quote disappointing you know so this is especially should be especially alarming to the administration because everything they've done on immigration so far is solely to please the radical left and if AOC does not represent the radical left I don't know who does right because we're seeing along the border the moderate democrats legal immigrants are not falling in line with this narrative of anyone who can get across the border is welcome here you know we just saw a republican a pro-border security republican win in McAllen which is a majority Hispanic district that has historically gone very blue so this messaging is not resonating with anyone anymore you know we saw polling early on that basically showed obviously conservatives are not on board with a open borders policy moderate democrats aren't on board independents aren't on board the only people that backed President Biden and Vice President Harris on this issue were radical democrats and now even radical democrats are saying y'all have no clue what you're doing

Matthew:
no honestly I mean it's this has become an issue that is upsetting both members of the republican party and democrat party I mean it's not just a republican issue it's a conservative issue I mean many people on both sides of the aisle are upset of how Harris and Mayorkas and Biden have handled the southern border again five months of continued increased illegal immigration border apprehensions last month the highest for any month in 21 years and so you know people want to see an end to this they want to see a safe legal way for people to come to this country and that's not what we're seeing at all and you know kind of to go off of the Guatemala trip Kamala also went to Mexico the day after Guatemala and you know this was probably less of a rocky experience but she still definitely didn't have a good experience in the country when she met with President Obrador you know people will say her timing was bad Mexico just finished its midterm elections many which many people at least 88 politicians since September have been killed so there you know there was a lot of violence going on it's just kind of like an inappropriate time for her to visit one Mexican government official called her visit not ideal a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for western hemisphere affairs said that she basically should have looked at what was going on internally in Mexico and she didn't and she just basically showed up at the wrong possible time so she again appeared tone deaf took the spotlight away from what was happening domestically in Mexico and then you know she left the country after negotiating 130 million dollar commitment over the next three years to support these so-called labor reforms in Mexico and loans to bolster its southern economy but I mean again this type of foreign aid we've seen repeatedly doesn't really do much to curb illegal immigration and really secure a southern border so again I think this was a really just a bad trip in general

Spencer:
yeah it just seems like from start to finish it was very tone deaf yeah you know there and it really reflects the immigration policy of the Biden administration so far we don't care what our own citizens think we don't care what the citizens of foreign countries or the leaders of foreign countries say we're going to literally do everything the opposite of Trump including things that the president of Mexico the president of Guatemala have told us were impactful and helped their countries but because Trump did it we're gonna do the opposite and we're seeing the negative repercussions of that now

Matthew:
no and we are and you know I think it's you know you have to question if Harris is gonna be allowed even to go back to Mexico and Guatemala I mean obviously if she's in this border type of position border czar if you will you know she should be frequently visiting these countries negotiating agreements just checking in on what's going on in these countries but I mean after this trip I don't know if the white house will send her down again in fact Mayorkas the DHS secretary was already sent to Mexico after Harris left so probably to do some you know damage control

Spencer:
well obviously the entire theory of the administration on how they're going to fix the immigration crisis is throw money at it so Harris' trip was supposed to be to generate positive press and convince the American people that we're on this that we're going gonna fix it but history has shown us you know throwing money at an issue isn't going to work so it's in a way beneficial to the American people that this facade did not work you know all you have to do is look at look at what happened in the middle east when we threw money at those issues are those thriving western societies now that benefit the United States no they're not there continue to be failed states we've tried this in central and south America before and immigration illegal immigration now is worse than ever so essentially all we're doing is we're funding people's trips to come into the United States illegally so yeah I think in some ways it might be beneficial to the American people that this facade of a trip did not work out that the press was not positive that the Central American leaders saw right through the bs and that Harris botched it because that was their goal and now that their goal was for this to generate positive press and now that has failed hopefully they're not going to be left with any more recourse other than to consider perhaps re-implementing some of the positive policies that worked under Trump that might just be wishful thinking obviously they're not going to do anything to give republicans or President Trump any credit but who knows maybe they'll you know repackage some form of MPP under a different name and take credit for it who knows

Matthew:
honestly you know that could actually be a possibility but just name it something else all right Spencer that was a really good rundown of what happened during this two-day trip so now I want to bring in senior writer for townhall.com Julio Rosas he covers immigration extensively and actually had a really good piece on Harris's trip and he talked about how the white house was perplexed and even disappointed in how Harris handled herself during this experience so Julio you reported that the white house wasn't happy with her trip why were they unhappy what did you see from your end

Julio:
well it's just because I mean nothing of real value was implemented during the trips I mean sure they could talk about anti-corruption task forces and even more money being spent than to be sent down in those countries but I mean really the whole thing was overshadowed by the fact that Harris has purposefully I should add avoided making a trip to the southern border and so you know that question came up multiple times and each time her answer just kept getting worse and her laugh kept getting worse as well to answer that question I mean so it was just it was it was just a complete okay I wouldn't say it was a complete waste of time because I would say the good thing is that she kind of brought the issue back because you know I’ve been covering the border for a couple of years and obviously there was a big interest from the media back in March when the crisis kind of first really gained steam but in the time since then it hasn't gotten as much attention as it recently did because Harris has avoided the border so I guess that's a good thing but really it was just it was just a waste of time and yeah I’m not surprised at all that the white house and the president's staff was unhappy with her performance because I mean it was just it just it just highlighted again why she was not a viable candidate during the primaries I mean she dropped out before the first voting first round of voting started so I mean it just it just was of little consequence

Matthew:
right you know so how do you think the governments of Mexico and Guatemala view her after this trip obviously there were you know there was some tension before she even traveled to these countries for the first time do you think that they view her differently the same or maybe better or worse I mean what are your thoughts on that

Julio:
well I mean it's kind of hard to say right because both Mexico's president and Guatemala’s president have said that the current surge that we're seeing is directly caused by the Biden administration's open border rhetoric and policies that they that they've implemented and so I mean it's kind of hard to then I mean obviously they played nice when they were when they were together but it's just the fact that they know what's causing their people to leave and they but I mean they still have to work with them to try to crack down on the corruption connect on the drug cartels and or whatever but it's just kind of like again she's not the president so I mean they know that they're working with an office that is just basically a figurehead office as a backup in case you know the worst happens so it just again shows how unserious the administration is in actually fixing the problem that they created and so they are just dealing with the fact that they're stuck with her and they know that she doesn't want to deal with it because obviously the issue of illegal immigration has been around for decades and as I said before we've spent lots of money on security and sending money down to the northern triangle countries and Mexico to try to try to solve it to no avail so this again it's just it was just a trip that was made and now I highly doubt anything of a real value will have come out of it

Spencer:
so Julio obviously the issue of immigration has not been very popular with this administration with the American public and the Biden administration was clearly hoping that sending Vice President Harris on a trip like this would generate some positive press that we could maybe show some kind of unity with Central American countries and convince voters that they are on it that they are trying to fix this issue instead we got what we got you know a disaster from the administration's standpoint and a lot of negative press so my question is will the administration allow the Vice President to continue going on trips like this in the future

Julio:
trips to the border or just trips in general?

Spencer:
I’m thinking specifically working with foreign dignitaries in the northern triangle in south America

Julio:
well maybe not because I mean it was reported this week that the secretary of homeland security he's going down to northern triangle countries right after so maybe not right I mean because now it looks like from an outsider’s perspective that he's kind of on cleanup duty from Harris's trip it's like okay well you know the Vice President work out so let's send the homeland security guy down there and at least at least Mayorkas has been to the border granted it was El Paso and it was to a child facility so it wasn't even really necessarily the full scope of it but at least at least he's been to a border town during this current crisis so I would hope he has a better understanding of what's really happening as opposed to Harris and look I understand that you know these trips can be a photo op and you know it it's just you know it's just for scenery and I get that but you know as someone who's been down there multiple times especially to the Rio Grande valley it's just it's just hard to deny that there isn't a crisis when you see it for yourself and really the hope you know with a trip for Harris to go down there would be you know a sense of urgency to kind of face reality and say okay well maybe this isn't actually working out let's actually like re-implement some of the policies that Trump put in place now of course that's just wishful thinking but again that that's just why Harris hasn't been down to the border anyway because again it just it would look bad it would just be another trip with negative press because you know when you have kids showing up by themselves while the Vice President is like a mile or so away it just it just doesn't look too good

Spencer:
and that really kind of answers my next question which is why won't the Vice President visit the border you know it seems like this was well overdue even if they tried to create some sort of beneficial photo op you know is it truly better for this administration to just for Harris and Biden to completely ignore the issue or are they potentially planning some sort of middle ground thing to at least try to give the illusion that they're on top of it

Julio:
I mean it's a little bit of both right because I mean they are ignoring it and like I said by having Harris or even Biden not go down there I mean even during the crisis in 2019 2018 you know at least Pence made the effort to go down there right and so yeah no it very much is just the fact that they know they caused this surge I mean it's it I mean they're not they're not that stupid they know they caused it and they don't want to see the effects for themselves and so I think that yeah they're going to try to focus more on well we're going to do immigration reform and yada yada yada we'll work with congress and try to pass something through which is okay fine but that still doesn't address what's going on right now which is we have parents voluntarily separating themselves from their kids sending them on this very dangerous and perilous journey up north a lot of them don't make it they get abused sexually physically sometimes they just straight up disappear to you know who knows what and you know if they make it to the border then they then go into whatever place that they're trying to get to and more often than not they're still indebted to the cartels to pay off their to pay off their smuggling debt so I mean like that to me that's not a compassionate approach to immigration just be and so again that's what that is a consequence of what the Biden administration has created

Matthew:
Julio you know what do you think the end goal with all this is I mean we have under Biden five months of you know continued increased legal immigration 180,000 apprehensions last month and that's the largest total for any month in 21 years the number of UACs in federal custody is at an all-time high I mean this is unsustainable obviously but you know what is the end goal because eventually you would think that they would have to take some action to change something I mean this you can't have this for another three and a half more years

Julio:
you know honestly I don't I don't know what the end goal is right because it from a from a logical standpoint you're right like this it's not sustainable you know they thankfully you have you know decrease the amount of people that are in the border patrol facilities right you know those cramps like the one in Donna and all that but that's only because they rapidly built up the outflow process right the inflow is still very much an issue and then of course then you know you have people who are not necessarily qualified right you know they're asking volunteers from all these federal agencies to make to staff all of these new facilities and you know that brings a whole host of problems and so no I don't know what the end goal is right and again it's just hard to think of well why would they allow such a thing to just continue on in the first place because the idea is like well this is clearly not working so let's go ahead and change course but no they they've continued they've continued to say the course and I think part of it is just the fact that they're so scared of being accused of acting like Donald Trump when it comes to immigration I mean and they wanted they ran on orange man bad they got into office and so now they just want to undo everything that he did even if it was working and you know there were a lot of things that Trump did for immigration that did stem the flow obviously people still cross and there's still drugs and what have you but it wasn't on this scale in such a short amount of time so I think they're just scared to just seem like they're acting like Trump on immigration despite the fact that even like Biden himself back in the early 2000s supported building the wall so it's just crazy it's crazy how much changes in like 10-15 years but that's just one example and obviously that doesn't get brought up as much anymore

Matthew:
you know I find it really interesting that you know obviously republicans have blasted Harris for not only the trip but how she's handled this border role but now even a number of democrats were calling out her and Mayorkas and Biden you know people from border districts like Cuellar even AOC I don't know if you saw that she was called Harris' remarks in Guatemala disappointing I mean this is not even just a you know a right-leaning issue or a republican issue I mean it seems like people on both sides of the political aisle are upset with how the administration's handling the border right now have you seen this recently and you know what are your thoughts on just that it's becoming kind of like a unified issue in terms of people being upset at the administration?

Julio:
well so yeah and obviously most of the democrats that don't live near the border they can live in ignorant bliss on what's really happening but I mean I gotta give props Congressman Cuellar because he has been a leading voice on the issue or on the current crisis just because he knows the effects because he lives in Laredo right I mean that's a border town and so I mean he was the one that was they leaked the first photos of when the when the border patrol facilities were overcrowded right I mean that didn't come from republican that was from a democrat and so I think that it's incurred even Mark Kelly and Kristen Semenov in Arizona they obviously haven't been as vocal but they have said like yeah they this is this is a problem that should be addressed by the administration and so yeah this this isn't just republicans doing these stunts and photo ops or you know what have you this there is concern and like I said I mean if there were hundreds of people crossing the backyards up here in Washington DC navy yard and Arlington you can bet your butt that they would get you know try to fix on it right away but because these are relatively I mean El Paso is like the only major poor town in San Diego but because you know these small border towns just don't have the importance to the rest of the nation they can just let it just continue affect them because obviously the effects of illegal immigration does ripple out but by the time it gets to DC or New York City it's not as up front in your face as it is in La Joya or Hidalgo or Del Rio so that's why they're able to just you know not really pay attention to it

Spencer:
yeah that's a that's a really good point you bring up because immigration is by far the administration's least popular issue with voters you know the vast majority of Americans think the administration is handling the border crisis in a completely unacceptable way so what would have to happen for the Biden and Harris administration to change course on immigration or is that even a possibility are they just willing to go down with the ship at this point if that ends up being a defining issue

Julio:
I don't I mean I don't see it changing I don't see them changing and that's the sad thing because again just what I was what I was referring to before about you know what the migrants themselves go through to reach the United States so because it's out of again it's just because it's out of sight out of mind they can afford and the rest of the country that supports them they can afford to just you know not pay attention to it and that's why I’ve been making sure that I go down there as often as I can when that's when it's relevant to really highlight hey this is still going on this is an issue and now of course we're now entering June I mean it's 100 degrees down there with the humidity or the very extensive dry heat so a lot of people are going to die a lot of people already die on the journey north and but now with just the more influx of people then naturally more people are going to die and so again but because it happens in Mexico or it happens in the remote deserts of Arizona or Texas people don't they can like I said they can afford to not give it the attention it deserves

Spencer:
you know we just saw a border town in Texas actually a pretty sizable community elect a republican mayor and so I’m curious even if this isn't impacting the Biden-Harris campaign in a meaningful enough way to cause them to change course what are the ramifications in the midterms in 2022?

Julio:
yeah no I think I think because their handling of it is has been actually like very unpopular actually it's one of the most popular things so far in in Biden's term because I mean we even saw it during the 2020 elections right with the border counties in Texas just flipping to red which is something that's kind of unheard of because a lot of these areas are democrat-leaning but again because this is an everyday issue for people they saw how it was under Trump they liked it with the you know building of the border wall and you know cracking not doing catch and release and using Title 42 to try to you know prevent covid cases from coming in they wanted more of that and so I think what the mayor the new GOP mayor of McAllen I think that is a sign to say that okay yeah if we're gonna have democratic leaders ignore this then we're gonna just go with republicans because at least they're making noise about it so I think that will bode well for republicans nationwide in the midterms for the House I think they have a really I mean they were already kind of poised to gain the majority again but with this being just a constant thorn in the side of the Biden-Harris administration they can definitely use that to their advantage and look you know obviously this shouldn't be political but it but it but it is because these are real people that we’re talking about and obviously it affects Americans as well but that's why it's even more unfortunate that democrats on a national level just really don't want to address the problem

Matthew:
all right well I think that's a great place to end today and that's all the time that we have we'd like to thank Julio for joining us today again he is a senior writer at townhall.com so please check out their website if you want to read more of his articles you can also find him on twitter @Julio_Rosas11 he posts a lot of content on his twitter feed so be sure to check him out there thanks for coming on we really appreciate it. we hope that you enjoyed today's episode we hope that you learned about this historic and kind of disastrous trip to be honest hopefully this can serve as a learning experience for the Vice President as a reminder we'll be releasing a new episode every other Monday our episodes are available on most platforms including spotify apple podcasts and google podcasts you can also visit our website fairus.org to access these episodes and also on our twitter feed @FAIRImmigration to access them as well so please spread the word we really appreciate you tuning in and listening to these episodes until next time this has been understanding immigration presented by FAIR