Chairman Green Statement on VP Harris’ Border Visit: “The Arsonist Returning to the Scene of the Fire”

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, MD (R-TN) issued a statement ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris' trip to the Southwest border. In March 2021, Harris was charged by President Joe Biden with responsibility for handling the unprecedented border crisis:

For more on Harris' history of extreme positions on border security, and her failed track record as "border czar," click here.

"It's been more than three years since Vice President and 'border czar' Kamala Harris last went to the border, and her last-ditch visit now is little more than the arsonist returning to the scene of the fire. Since President Biden charged her with stemming the historic surge of illegal aliens across our sovereign borders, CBP has recorded more than 10 million inadmissible alien encounters, more than triple the number recorded under the prior administration. Millions of these individuals, along with roughly two million known gotaways, have descended on every community in this country, putting a massive strain on local resources and causing untold pain and suffering for families of innocent Americans like Rachel Morin, Laken Riley, and Jocelyn Nungaray. Vice President Harris has no interest in securing the border and ending this crisis-because it is the Biden-Harris administration's refusal to enforce the laws passed by Congress that caused it in the first place."
Background: Harris has overseen a border crisis like no other in American history.

• Since early 2021, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has recorded more than 10.3 million encounters nationwide, with more than 8.3 million of them at the Southwest border.
• Roughly 2 million known gotaways have evaded Border Patrol agents since Fiscal Year (FY) 21. In testimony before the Committee last year, then-chief of Border Patrol, Raul Ortiz, said the total number of gotaways could be undercounted by as much as 20%.
• Encounters at ports of entry have exploded, from 294,352 in FY21 to more than 1.25 million so far in FY24.
• Apprehensions of Chinese nationals crossing the Southwest border illegally exceed 36,000 just since October 2023, more than were apprehended from FY07-20 combined.
• More than 200,000 Americans have died from the fentanyl being smuggled across the Southwest border by the criminal cartels.
• From FY21 through August 2024, the Border Patrol recorded more than 53,000 arrests of illegal aliens with criminal backgrounds, compared to 21,936 from FY17-20.
• Nearly 400 illegal aliens whose names appear on the terrorist watchlist have been caught crossing the Southwest and northern borders between ports of entry, compared to just 14 from FY17-20. Relatedly, last week, former San Diego Sector Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke testified to the Committee that he was prevented from talking publicly about the increasing number of arrests of Special Interest Aliens-aliens who potentially pose a national security risk to the United States-illegally crossing the border.

Harris' job as "border czar" was ostensibly to find the "root causes" of the border crisis. It turns out that to do so, all she had to do was look in the mirror.

• Despite her role, she called border visits "grand gestures," making only one trip to the Southwest border between June 2021-September 2024. Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar blasted her 2021 visit as a "politically safe," "check the box" visit.
• In late July, we learned that she has never spoken with current Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens, or his predecessor, Chief Raul Ortiz. This belies absolute dereliction of her duty.
• Harris has also lied repeatedly about the crisis she helped create. In June 2022, she falsely claimed on national television, "The border is secure. We have a secure border in that that is a priority for any nation, including ours and our administration." That month, there were 247,523 encounters at our borders nationwide, the worst June number in decades.
• She also viciously slandered mounted Border Patrol agents in Del Rio in furtherance of the fake "whipping" scandal, saying their standard security tactics resembled those that were "used against African Americans during times of slavery."
• There's a reason why the House, on a bipartisan vote, passed a resolution on July 25, 2024, condemning the administration's open-borders policies, and Harris' failure as "border czar."
• In 2015, she said, "An undocumented immigrant is not a criminal." Illegally crossing the Southwest border is a federal misdemeanor, with up to six months in prison as the penalty for a first offense, and a felony for repeat offenders. More importantly, Harris brought that mentality to her role as the "border czar."

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