As ‘Border Czar,’ Harris Never Spoke To Border Chiefs
Mocrats as evidence of mistreatment of migrants. Harris called the images “horrible” and “terrible” without seeing the full context of the incident. Ortiz said that the false narrative pushed by the administration tarnished the reputation of law enforcement officers and emboldened drug cartels who capitalized on the distraction to smuggle narcotics across the border.
“They emboldened dope dealers who are laffing at us and smuggling marijuana across the border,” Ortiz said on the show, adding that the smugglers “bet against” the administration that they would not be able to stop illegal drugs from crossing the border.
Ortiz also mentioned that the cartels influence local politicians by threatening violence, and he criticized the administration for shutting their eyes to the problem.
Since August, Harris has not publicly visited the border region despite being questioned by reporters about it multiple times. The last time she visited the border was in June. Ortiz called out Harris for her lack of engagement and said that the lack of action and leadership from the administration has left border agents in a “depressing” situation.
“It’s hard for the men and women in uniform,” Ortiz said on “60 Minutes.” “They’re losing hope, and they’re losing faith in their leadership because they feel betrayed. They feel like they&rsrsquo;re working for an administration that doesn&rsrsquo;t have their back.”
Ortiz criticized the administration for denying the crisis, saying that when politicians refuse to call a crisis a crisis, they refuse to send help.
Vice President Kamala Harris never spoke to either chief of the U.S. Border Patrol under the Biden administration, despite the former California senator’s appointment as the White House “border czar” three years ago.
On Monday, NewsNation correspondent Ali Bradley wrote on X that Harris, who launched her bid for her party’s presidential nomination Sunday, has yet to speak with Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens, “who has been in the position for the last year.”
NEW: I just confirmed that VP/Border Czar Kamala Harris has not talked with Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens, who has been in the position for the last year.
The same goes for retired BP Chief Raul Ortiz who disclosed back in March that he never “had one conversation” with the…
— Ali Bradley (@AliBradleyTV) July 22, 2024
Owens’ predecessor, Raul Ortiz, who led the law enforcement agency from 2021 to 2023, told CBS in March that he “never had one conversation with the president or the vice president” during his tenure.
“I was the chief of the Border Patrol; I commanded 21,000 people. That’s a problem,” Ortiz said on “60 Minutes.”
Harris was tasked with handling the administration’s response to the southern border crisis re-ignited by President Joe Biden’s election in 2020. In March, Ortiz said that Biden was “most definitely” sending “mixed messages” to migrants who plan to cross the border.
Owens also told CBS News in a March interview the situation at the southern border has deteriorated into a “national security threat.”
“What’s keeping me up at night is the 140,000 known got-aways,” Owens said, in reference to migrants who’ve crossed the border but evaded capture by law enforcement over the 2024 fiscal year. “If we don’t know who is coming into our country, and we don’t know what their intent is, that is a threat and they’re exploiting a vulnerability that’s on our border right now.”
[RELATED:[RELATED:65 Times Biden Gutted Border Security Since Taking The White House]
More than 1.7 million “known got-aways” have illegally crossed the border since Biden took office, which “is higher than the 1.4 million recorded in the entire decade from 2010 to 2020,” the New York Post reported in May. When asked on the presidential debate stage in 2019 whether she believed lawmakers should decriminalize illegal border crossings, then-Sen. Harris raised her hand in the affirmative.
FLASHBACK: Kamala raised her hand in favor of *decriminalizing* illegal border crossings pic.twitter.com/VLcvvBQFmg
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 21, 2024
As vice president overseeing the disaster on the border, Harris participated in the administration’s peddling of the hoax wherein federal agents were accused of “whipping” Haitian migrants who crossed the border in 2021. Viral images of agents using horse reigns as a common crowd control measure to protect the horses and the bystanders were misinterpreted by Democrats and the corporate press as “whips” being used to beat migrants.
“What I saw depicted about those individuals on horseback, treating human beings the way they were, is horrible. And I fully support what is happening right now, which is a thorough investigation into exactly what is going on there,” Harris said when the images surfaced. “But human beings should never be treated that way and I am deeply troubled by it.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who survived congressional impeachment proceedings this spring, said in 2021 “those images painfully conjured up the worst elements of our nation’s ongoing battle against systemic racism.”
The photographer who took the photo, however, had explained prior to Mayorkas taking the White House podium that no whips were used.
“I’ve never seen them whip anyone,” Paul Ratje told KTSM. “He was swinging it, but it can be misconstrued when you’re looking at the picture.”
When pressed on the photographer’s contradictory testimony, Mayorkas dismissed the clarification.
“The horses have long reins, and the image in the photograph that we all saw, and that horrified the nation, raised serious questions about what … occurred, and as I stated quite clearly, it conjured up images of what has occurred in the past,” Mayorkas said.
Emails revealed by the Heritage Foundation through the Freedom of Information Act in October 2022, however, show Mayorkas knew the whipping debacle was another episode of fake news peddled by the Democrat elite before he defended the controversy against the agents accused.
Mayorkas went on to correct a reporter last December more than a year after peddling the hoax himself wherein the DHS secretary clarified from the White House press podium an “investigation concluded that the whipping did not occur.”
Mayorkas corrects April Ryan when she brings up the “Haitians being whipped with the reins of the horses,” noting “the investigation concluded that the whipping did not occur.”
Ryan: “Maybe either the video or the picture was fixed but what I saw was totally different.” pic.twitter.com/sPLPRLMXAx
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) May 11, 2023
The New York Post reported in May that one agent falsely accused of whipping migrants by the president himself was recognized with the Border Patrol Achievement Award for his intelligence work on human smuggling.
Vice President Harris, however, never apologized for participating in the smear campaign against border agents by comparing the incident to “slavery.”
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at [email protected]. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
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