To be, or not to be, the Border Czar? Is that even the right question?

Kamala Harris, and much of the media, are running from the term "Border Czar." But Harris won't be able to run away from the border, no matter what you call her.

In March 2021, to much fanfare, President Joe Biden announced that he was taking border security seriously and was placing Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of managing migration at the southern border. Biden said he was giving her a "tough job," but that she was "the most qualified person to do it."

"While we are clear that people should not come to the border now, we also understand that we will enforce the law and that we also—because we can chew gum and walk at the same time—must address the root causes that cause people to make the trek as the president has described to come here,” Harris said at the time.

Now that she’s the (very) likely nominee of the Democratic Party after the withdrawal of President Biden from the campaign, Harris—with much of the left-leaning media’s help—is attempting to distance herself from the border, something she has been quite adept at since Biden gave her the task more than three years ago. That must be the “walk” part of “chew gum and walk”—as she has mostly walked away from any public role in border security. A silly word game over whether Harris was ever the “border czar” has ensued.

The genesis of the term “border czar” to refer to Vice President Harris is disputed—and Republicans have frequently taunted her with that moniker. It’s a title that Harris, and lately many in the media, have rejected—especially now that it’s almost assured that Harris will be the Democratic nominee and immigration is an issue at the top of voter’s minds.

“But Ms. Harris was not, in fact, appointed border czar,” declaimed the New York Times, in the July 17, 2024 edition, “nor was she tasked with addressing the broader problems plaguing the border itself.”

But according to a report in the very same New York Times from April 2021, just weeks after Biden’s announcement, “Ms. Harris will also soon be taking over work from a departing official with years of experience. Last week, Roberta S. Jacobson, the former ambassador to Mexico chosen as Mr. Biden’s ‘border czar,’ said that she would retire from government. She said she was happy to see Ms. Harris assume the work of stemming migration from Central America.” Maybe reporters from the New York Times should read…The New York Times.

At the time of Biden’s announcement all the major news outlets, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, reported that Harris would be coordinating the administration’s immigration policy and often referred to her as the “point person” chosen to “stem the tide of migrants.” A Washington Post headline announcing just that, “Harris to be point person for Biden administration in stemming flow of migrants at the border,” was typical.

To be, or not to be, the “border czar”

Whether Harris was, or was not, the “border czar” or “point person” is irrelevant—she was the Vice President of the United States—and like it or not, she’s going to be saddled with any of the real, or perceived, failures of the Biden Administration. Try as she might, there will be no distancing herself from that—and the border is generally regarded by the public as a policy disaster.

According to the non-partisan Pew Research Center, “Americans overwhelmingly fault the government for how it has handled the migrant situation.” The public opinion firm Gallup recently reported that “Significantly more U.S. adults than a year ago, 55% versus 41%, would like to see immigration to the U.S. decreased.” In their latest survey, Gallup found that “42% describe the situation at the U.S. border with Mexico as a crisis and 35% a major problem.”

And THAT is a major problem, perhaps a crisis, for the “Border Czar,” “point-person,” Vice President, whoever—and now likely Democratic nominee for President Kamala Harris.

Republicans, especially former President Trump, who advocate border security are often portrayed as “inhumane,” or “uncaring.” It wasn’t that long ago, however, that the nation’s leading Democrats, including former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, were saying that the United States needed more secure borders and were touting their successes in slowing immigration. And that was when illegal immigration was a fraction of what it is today.

"When I took office, I committed to fixing this broken immigration system. And I began by doing what I could to secure our borders,” President Obama said in a November 2014 statement. “Today, we have more agents and technology deployed to secure our southern border than at any time in our history. And over the past six years, illegal border crossings have been cut by more than half.”

In his 1996 State of the Union Address President Bill Clinton said “there are some areas that the federal government should not leave and should address and address strongly. One of these areas is the problem of illegal immigration. After years of neglect, this administration has taken a strong stand to stiffen the protection of our borders…Let me be very clear about this: We are still a nation of immigrants; we should be proud of it. We should honor every legal immigrant here, working hard to become a new citizen. But we are also a nation of laws.”

Too Little, too Late?

In an article that’s more fawning than reporting, the New York Times tried to downplay both Harris’ role in immigration policy as well as the level of immigration during Harris’ tenure as Vice President. “After the number of migrants crossing the southern border hit record levels at times during the administration’s first three years, “ writes the Times, “crossings have now dropped to their lowest levels since Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris took office.”

The “at times” the New York Times refers to is more truthfully the entire time, and the crossings (actually illegal crossings) that have now “dropped to their lowest levels since Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris took office,” are still the highest in more than 20 years. So much for unbiased reporting.

Beginning in 2021 Southern Border Encounters reached historically high levels

Back in June the President, realizing that concerns about the border could be his campaign’s Achilles Heel, said he would “take the necessary steps to secure our border.” After three years of unprecedented levels of illegal border crossings the President said “today, I’m moving past Republican obstruction and using the executive authorities available to me as president to do what I can on my own to address the border.” But what the President could have done in June 2024, he could have done in June 2021, or June 2022, or June 2023. Why didn’t he? A cynic (me) might say that the sudden change in policy was not intended to stem the flow of illegal immigration as much as to stem Biden’s plummeting approval ratings—which are now irrelevant.

Oh, and by-the-way, nowhere in the statement is Vice President Harris mentioned—nowhere. So, that might tell you one of two things—one, Harris never had anything much to do with border policy (in which case the March 2021 announcement was political fluff), or that Harris had lost the President’s trust on the border. Neither bode well for Harris, who has worked harder at avoiding border questions than quelling border crossings.

For much of the past three years, Harris has mostly avoided questions about the border, or acting in any meaningful way that it remotely concerned her. “After her disastrous interview with Lester Holt of NBC News in June 2021, in which she struggled to articulate the administration’s strategy for securing the border,” wrote New York Times reporters Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Katie Rogers and Peter Baker, “White House officials — including some in her own office — noted that she all but went into a bunker for about a year, avoiding many interviews out of what aides said was a fear of making mistakes and disappointing Mr. Biden.”

The quarrel over whether Harris was the “border czar,” or not, is much ado about nothing—and it’s not the right question. “As Joe Biden’s vice-president,” observes The Economist, “Ms Harris is in essence running as an incumbent. She will inherit his weaknesses, which Republicans are more than ready to exploit. That is most evident on immigration.”

The right question then, is what was she, and the administration of which she was a part, doing about the border? The American people will expect an answer to that one.