Fox News' Peter Doocy grilled White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre over recent claims that Vice President Kamala Harris never served as "border czar" Thursday.
"Border czar" is an informal title widely granted to Harris in 2021 when President Biden appointed her to handle the "root causes" of illegal immigration. Doocy pressed Jean-Pierre on why the White House was attempting to distance Harris from the border crisis.
Doocy quoted several Democratic talking points claiming that Harris was "never appointed border czar. There is no such position. It doesn't exist."
"Why are Democrats so sensitive about the vice president and the border?" Doocy asked. "Do you think that the border would be less of a talking point now if there was less migration to the border, say, if somebody had addressed ‘root causes’ of migration sooner?"
AXIOS HIT WITH COMMUNITY NOTE AFTER CLAIMING HARRIS WAS NEVER ‘BORDER CZAR’
"[Border apprehensions] are down by 55%. Not because of Republicans and what they did. It's because of what this president and this vice president did," Jean-Pierre responded.
"We are going to debunk the false characterization of the vice president. She was not a border czar. And it's not just us. Independent fact-checkers have said the same thing — that that did not exist, and that is not true," she added.
Harris was widely dubbed the "border czar" after President Biden tasked her in March 2021 to address the root causes of mass migration from Central and South America.
In July 2021, she introduced a five-point general strategy to combat the "root causes" of illegal immigration. The plan did not include specific policies, but instead called for "diplomacy, foreign assistance, public diplomacy, and sanctions" to "establish a fair, orderly, and humane immigration system."
The document emphasized the "push" factors of migration, including natural disasters in Central America, poverty, hunger, and gang violence, each of which contributes to people leaving their homes in search of a better life in America.
"In Central America, the root causes of migration run deep — and migration from the region has a direct impact on the United States," Harris said at the time. "For that reason, our nation must consistently engage with the region to address the hardships that cause people to leave Central America and come to our border."
Republican critics of the Biden administration's policies tend to emphasize "pull" factors — U.S. policies that incentivize illegal immigration by offering amnesty, protection from deportation, job opportunities, entitlement and other benefits to migrants. These push and pull factors work together and have led to an unprecedented number of people attempting to cross the southern border illegally in recent years.
Customs and Border Protection agents encountered nearly 2.5 million persons attempting entry along the Southwest border in fiscal year 2023, an all-time record.
Harris' endeavors secured more than $5 billion in private investments for Northern Triangle nations, but the number of illegal immigrants to the U.S. has set new records each year since Biden put her in charge of the issue. Border apprehensions from those countries have dropped from 700,000 in FY 21 to less than 500,000 in FY 23, although it is unclear the extent to which that drop is connected to those root cause strategies.
GOP critics have derided the vice president for only making one brief visit to the U.S.-Mexico border in June 2021 to El Paso, Texas, where there are comparatively fewer encounters.
While the Biden administration has rejected "border czar" as an unofficial title for Harris' role, the term was used by her critics and even embraced by multiple news organizations, at least until she ascended to the top of the ticket.
Axios went viral Wednesday with its report about the "border confusion" that has haunted Harris, telling readers "the Trump campaign and Republicans have tagged Harris repeatedly with the 'border czar' title — which she never actually had."
However, critics cited Axios' own reporting from 2021 saying that Biden had appointed Harris "border czar." Axios later added an editor's note stating, "This article has been updated and clarified to note that Axios was among the news outlets that incorrectly labeled Harris a ‘border czar’ in 2021."
"The propaganda press working so hard to erase the fact that Kamala Harris was put in charge of the border shows not only what a vulnerability her role in the border is but also what a huge vulnerability her general incompetence is," The Federalist editor-in-chief Mollie Hemingway reacted on X.
The debate over Harris' roles and responsibilities as it pertains to the border comes as the House of Representatives voted along bipartisan lines to condemn Harris' handling of the issue. Six Democrats joined all Republicans in voting for the measure, which passed 220-196.
Although border encounters have decreased dramatically in recent months, CBP sources tell Fox News the number of "known getaways," migrants who evade apprehension, has surpassed 200,000 this fiscal year.
Fox News' William La Jeunesse and Griff Jenkins, as well as Fox News Digital's Joseph Wulfsohn and Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.
