Vice President Kamala Harris, who emerged as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee on Sunday, has yet to speak with the current head of the Border Patrol, despite the ongoing crisis at the southern border and the vice president’s role in addressing the “root causes” of that crisis.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed to Fox News that Governor Harris has not spoken with Border Patrol Commissioner Jason Owens, who took over last year in the midst of a raging crisis at the border now in its third year.
Earlier this year, former Border Patrol chief Raul Ortiz said he had not heard from either Biden or Harris during his tenure.
How will President Harris handle immigration and the border crisis?
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Las Vegas on June 28, 2024. (Bizayev Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
“I’ve never had a conversation with the president or the vice president. I was the head of the Border Patrol. I was in charge of 21,000 people. That’s the problem,” Ortiz told “60 Minutes.” News Nation Harris first reported that she had not spoken to either chief, and Customs and Border Protection and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Harris was tasked by President Biden in 2021 to lead diplomatic efforts to address the issue. The “root causes” of migration In Northern Triangle countries, she has been dubbed a “border czar” by Republicans, a charge the White House denies.
Then-Chief Patrol Officer Jason D. Owens poses for a photo at the U.S. Border Patrol’s Houlton Sector Headquarters in Hodgdon on Aug. 20, 2019. (Gregory Reck/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)
This was a politically tricky assignment for Harris because it came in the midst of a historic surge in conference attendance that would ultimately break records over the next three years.
As part of her reporting in 2021, Harris will visit Mexico and Guatemala to urge migrants not to come, and will also visit the border in El Paso, Texas. Since May 2021, more than 50 companies and organizations have contributed more than $5.2 billion to the project, which calls for private investment in the region.
And while it’s unclear how much of a role the investments have played, the number of arrivals from those three countries has fallen from more than 700,000 in fiscal year 2021 to less than 330,000 as of May, four months before the deadline. But those Northern Triangle countries, along with Mexico, remain the top source countries for migrants arriving at the border.
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With President Biden dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing Harris as his successor, Harris’ record on immigration is likely to come under intense scrutiny in the coming months.
Polls have shown the crisis to be a top priority for voters, and Republicans have harshly criticized the administration over it, arguing that its rollback of policies is what created the crisis in the first place.
The Biden administration said it needed funding and reforms from Congress and on Day One introduced a sweeping immigration reform bill that was rejected by Republicans because it included a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.
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Since then, the party has been pushing for passage of a bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate earlier this year, which Harris supported in a statement.
“This agreement on border security and immigration does not encompass everything we’ve fought for over the last three years, and we will continue to fight for these priorities. But this agreement shows that we can make our border more secure while preserving lawful immigration, which is consistent with our values as a nation,” she said.
Get the latest updates on the ongoing border crisis from the Fox News Digital immigration hub.
