Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a cringeworthy message to Guatemalans on her first trip abroad since being elected to the White House: “I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border: Do not come,” she said on Monday. “Do not come.” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki later clarified Harris’ message. “What the vice president was simply conveying is that there’s more work to be done, that we don’t have these symptoms in place yet,” Psaki explained to reporters on Tuesday. “It’s still a dangerous journey, as we’ve said many times from here and from many forums before, and we need more time to get the work done to ensure that asylum processing is where it should be.”
It’s a fair explanation, and far be it from me to lay years of botched immigration policy at the feet of the current administration to fix in a matter of months—which by the way, Republicans appear all too willing to do. But this administration does have an obligation to the kind of transparency the administration of former President Donald Trump simply was not capable of. Harris and President Joe Biden are going to have to do more than assert that there are “legal methods by which migration can and should occur.” Many immigrants know that simply is not the full truth.
Olayemi Olurin, a New York public defender, said in a Twitter thread she's been "lawfully in America" since 2008. "I’ve attended high school, college + law school here. I’ve passed + been admitted to the bar,” she said. “I’m a public defender defending peoples constitutional rights. I still have no path to citizenship except marriage. Be honest about immigration.” Olurin said she is sick of the "myth that you can decide you want to live in America and you fill out some paperwork and you're done … False," she tweeted. "It is HARD to get to America legally and it's even harder to stay."
Alejandra Caraballo, a civil rights attorney and former staff attorney with the LGBTQ Law Project at New York Legal Assistance Group, tweeted: “That narrative of super educated people easily getting in needs to end. I know friends doing post-docs at Ivy who have trouble getting immigrant visas instead of J-1s. Since when did immigration require a grad degree anyways? We should welcome all regardless of education.”
Sarah Rich, a senior supervising attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in a statement released on Wednesday that "seeking protection from violence and persecution is a fundamental human right, and the right to seek asylum is protected by U.S. and international law." Rich said Harris’ remarks “fly in the face of the right to seek asylum in the U.S. and indicate a disturbing continuity between the Trump administration and the Biden-Harris administration.”
Rich added in her statement:
“The Vice President’s remarks ignore our country’s long history of meddling in Central America’s affairs and supporting right-wing governments that massacred their own citizens and embezzled public money. The SPLC represents asylum seekers, and we know that people who flee for the relative safety of the U.S. do so because they fear for their lives and time is not a luxury they can afford.
“SPLC has been litigating a case challenging turnbacks of asylum seekers at the southern border since the Trump Administration, and the court has already ruled that U.S. law mandates that immigration officers inspect and process all people arriving at ports of entry to seek asylum, rather than summarily turning them back. Vice President Harris’s public promise to turn back asylum seekers at the border ignores this legal obligation.
“Whether the Biden-Harris administration wants people to flee Central America or not, they will continue to do so, and the U.S. government should welcome them with humane policies that affirm their dignity and comply with the law. This administration promised a break from the racist, xenophobic, and anti-immigrant policies of President Trump and Stephen Miller — but where asylum is concerned, the Biden-Harris Administration’s policies are just more of the same. It is imperative that the Biden-Harris administration abandon the hateful anti-asylum policies of the prior administration and reaffirm its commitment to human rights."
Rep. Raul Ruiz, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, told The Hill he understood Harris' warning as "a compassionate, humanitarian plea because of the dangers of taking the long trek up north … She has a difficult task and she's very capable of achieving the objective of understanding the root causes of why families are leaving, and put together a comprehensive plan to build hope for people to stay and flourish in their home countries,” he added.
Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University public affairs professor, told the political news website what Harris says “won’t be as important as whether she can put forward an overall solution to the immigration challenges facing the nation … Along the way, there are ups and downs, gaffes and accomplishments,” Zelizer added. “But what she will be evaluated on is the bigger picture: Is immigration handled in a better fashion by the time her term as VP is over?”
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