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Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she boards Air Force Two after a campaign event July 23, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP)
In March 2021, President Joe Biden tasked Vice President Kamala Harris with working alongside officials in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to address the issues driving people to leave those countries and come to the United States.
The Biden-Harris administration said it would focus on five key issues: economic insecurity, corruption, human rights, criminal gang violence and gender-based violence.
Border security and management is the Homeland Security secretary’s responsibility.
Vice President Kamala Harris might soon get a new official title: 2024 Democratic presidential nominee. In the meantime, Republicans have revived a title they gave her in 2021: "border czar."
Claims that President Joe Biden named Harris the "border czar" and that she is responsible for overseeing U.S. border enforcement gained prominence at the Republican National Convention as the party sought to link her to his immigration policy.
The refrain intensified once Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris. It was echoed in ads and by Trump campaign surrogates, including Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee.
"Here’s Biden appointing Kamala Harris to be his border czar to deal with illegal immigration," a narrator says in a video the Republican National Committee posted on its X account, @GOP. "And here are a record number of illegal immigrants — 10 million and counting — flooding over the border after Harris was put in charge of stopping illegal immigration."
We’ve repeatedly fact-checked claims about the number of people entering the U.S. illegally under Biden. The federal data tracks how many times officials encountered a person trying to cross the southern border, but it doesn’t reflect the number of people let in. And if one person tries to cross the border multiple times, that counts as multiple encounters, even if it’s the same person.
For this fact-check, we’re focused on the scope of Harris’ border responsibilities.
"Border Czar Kamala Harris' reversal of President Trump's immigration policies has created an unprecedented and illegal immigration, humanitarian and national security crisis on our southern border," Trump campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told PolitiFact in a statement.
But Biden didn’t put Harris in charge of overseeing border security.
In a meeting with Harris in March 2021, Biden said Harris would lead U.S. diplomatic efforts and work with officials in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to stem migration to the U.S. Biden said that when he was vice president, he "got a similar assignment" and that the Obama administration secured $700 million to help countries in Central America.
"One of the ways we learned is that if you deal with the problems in country, it benefits everyone. It benefits us, it benefits the people, and it grows the economies there," Biden said then.
Biden asked Harris "to be the chief diplomatic officer with Central American countries" and address the root causes that make people leave their home countries, said Michelle Mittelstadt, communications director for the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
Managing the border "has always been" the Homeland Security secretary’s role, Mittelstadt said.
Biden tasked Harris with addressing the root causes influencing people’s decisions to migrate to the United States.
"I’ve asked her … to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and the countries that help — are going to need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border," Biden said in March 2021.
Biden held a similar role as vice president to former President Barack Obama. In a 2015 New York Times opinion piece, Biden said he would work with the Northern Triangle’s leaders on security, anti-corruption and investment efforts in the region.
"Donald Trump’s administration didn’t really sustain this strategy, but what Harris sought to revive in 2021 ran along the same lines," said Adam Isacson, defense oversight director at Washington Office on Latin America, a group advocating for human rights in the Americas.
Within weeks of Biden’s remarks about Harris’ role, Republicans including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., began calling Harris the "border czar" often in tandem with pointing out she had not yet been to the border.
In April 2021, when a reporter asked Harris whether she would visit the border, she said that her role is addressing the factors that make people leave their home countries, not managing the border.
"The president has asked (Homeland Security) Secretary (Alejandro) Mayorkas to address what is going on at the border. And he has been working very hard at that, and it’s showing some progress because of his hard work," Harris said at an event. "I have been asked to lead the issue of dealing with root causes in the Northern Triangle, similar to what the then-vice president did many years ago."
Harris said she’d focus on economic struggles, violence, corruption and food insecurity in the countries.
In June 2021, Harris visited El Paso, Texas, with Mayorkas. They outlined their responsibilities to reporters. Harris said she was addressing "the root causes of migration, predominantly out of Central America," and Mayorkas said, "It is my responsibility as the Secretary of Homeland Security to address the security and management of our border."
Vice President Kamala Harris holds a press conference June 25, 2021, at the airport after her tour of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Central Processing Center in El Paso, Texas. (AP)
But this distinction didn’t stop critics from linking Harris with U.S.-Mexico border security.
"The administration’s messaging on this in mid-2021 was not as clear as it should have been," Isacson said. "But at no time did Harris or the White House state that her duties included the U.S.-Mexico border, or border security."
Immigration experts said it’s hard to measure Harris’ success in her role, and that a "root causes" approach implies that the results will be seen long term, not immediately.
In July 2021, the administration published a strategy, with Harris writing the lead message, for confronting the factors that drive migration in Central America. The plan focused on economic insecurity, corruption, human rights, criminal gang violence and gender-based violence.
In March 2024, the administration said it secured more than $5.2 billion in private sector investments to the region. However, only about $1 billion has been distributed, the Partnership for Central America, a group working with the administration, reported.
The White House said the investments have generated more than 70,000 new jobs in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, provided job training to 1 million people and expanded digital access to 4.5 million people.
"Still, her engagement on this issue has been sporadic," Isacson said. "She has not traveled very often to the region or otherwise sought to make ‘root causes in Central America’ a central theme of her vice presidency."
Illegal immigration at the U.S. southern border from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador has dropped since 2021. Encounters with people from other countries, Venezuela, have risen.
"But it’s hard to prove that U.S. assistance is a central reason" for the Northern Triangle countries’ decline, Isacson said.
The issues pushing people to leave Central American countries "are extremely complex and require deep restructuring of so much in those societies," said Cecilia Menjivar, a sociology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who specializes on immigration. "So it’s very difficult for one person to change all that, even if it is a powerful person."
Immigration patterns at the U.S.-Mexico border have more to do with conditions in Latin American countries than "any U.S. policy," Mittelstadt said.
For example, a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has displaced nearly 8 million people since 2014, according to the United Nations. Political, economic and security crises in Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Ecuador have also led to more migration from these countries, Mittelstadt said.
In contrast, immigration encounters with people from El Salvador have dropped in past years, partly because of the country’s crime crackdown.
The Republican National Committee said Biden appointed Harris "to be his border czar to deal with illegal immigration...Harris was put in charge of stopping illegal immigration."
Biden tasked Harris with addressing the root causes that drive migration to the United States. He did not task her with controlling who and how many people enter the southern U.S. border. That's the Homeland Security secretary’s responsibility.
Experts say that seeing the results of addressing root causes driving people out of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras — violence, economic insecurity and corruption — takes time.
The statement contains an element of truth, but it ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.
Truth Social, post, July 22, 2024
The Hill, House Republicans tee up vote condemning Harris as ‘border czar’, July 23, 2024
C-SPAN, Sen. J.D. Vance campaign rally in Radford, Virginia, July 22, 2024
GOP, post on X, July 21, 2024
PolitiFact, Francis Suarez’s misleading claim about millions of migrants getting free cellphones, plane tickets, July 28, 2024
PolitiFact, There aren’t 20 million to 30 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally, as Sen. Marco Rubio claimed, June 11, 2024
The White House, Remarks by President Biden and Vice President Harris in a meeting on immigration, March 24, 2021
PolitiFact, Central America and the root causes of migration to the US, June 7, 2021
The New York Times, Joe Biden: A Plan for Central America, Jan. 29, 2015
The White House, Remarks by Vice President Harris at virtual roundtable of experts on the Northern Triangle, April 14, 2021
The White House, Remarks by Vice President Harris, Secretary of Homeland Security Mayorkas, Chairman Durbin, and Representative Escobar in press gaggle, June 25, 2021
Fox News, Obama-era DHS secretary: 'There's a real problem' when you have 'bipartisan outrage', July 23, 2024
The White House, FACT SHEET: Strategy to address the root causes of migration in Central America, July 29, 2021
The White House, FACT SHEET: Vice President Harris announces public-private partnership has generated more than $5.2 billion in private sector commitments for Northern Central America, March 25, 2024
Migration Policy Institute, Shifting patterns and policies reshape migration to U.S.-Mexico border in major ways in 2023, October 2023
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Venezuela crisis explained, April 17, 2024
PolitiFact, Donald Trump fact-check: 2024 RNC speech in Milwaukee full of falsehoods about immigrants, economy, July 19, 2024
CBS News, The facts about Kamala Harris' role on immigration in the Biden administration, July 23, 2024
Email interview, Michelle Mittelstadt, communications director for the Migration Policy Institute, July 22, 2024
Email interview, Adam Isacson, defense oversight director at Washington Office on Latin America, July 22, 2024
Email interview, Henry Ziemer, research associate for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, July 22, 2024
Email interview, Cecilia Menjivar, sociology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, July 22, 2024
Statement, Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign national press secretary, July 23, 2024
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