During an interview with NBC News anchor Lester Holt, Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been placed in charged of handling the illegal immigration crisis at the border, repeatedly and consecutively claimed “we’ve been to the border” – before Holt pointed out that she has not actually been to the border.
“The question that has come up and you heard it here and you’ll hear it again I’m sure, is, ‘Why not visit the border? Why not see what Americans are seeing in this crisis?’” Holt asked.
“Well, we are going to the border,” Harris replied. “We have to deal with what’s happening at the border, there’s no question about that. That’s not a debatable point. But we have to understand that there’s a reason people are arriving at our border and ask what is that reason and then identify the problem so we can fix it.”
Later in the interview, Holt brought the topic up again, asking Harris, “Do you have any plans to visit the border?”
“At some point, you know, we are going to the border. We’ve been to the border. So this whole thing about the border. We’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border,” Harris replied.
“You haven’t been to the border,” Holt pointed out.
“And I haven’t been to Europe,” Harris said before stating her confusion on why the interviewer would correct her. “And I mean, I don’t understand the point that you’re making. I’m not discounting the importance of the border.”
HARRIS: "We’ve been to the border. So this whole thing about the border."
Harris: "We’ve been to the border."
Harris: "We’ve been to the border."
HOLT: "You haven’t been to the border."
Harris: "I… and I haven’t been to Europe." https://t.co/dftSFsU88F pic.twitter.com/Q6pIdXQqPs— Caleb Howe (@CalebHowe) June 8, 2021
While Harris has been avoiding the border, illegal immigration levels have been at a 20 year high for three consecutive months. According to reports earlier this year, the overwhelming levels of illegal immigration has led to migrant children being kept in U.S. custody “for an average of 120 hours,” nearly double the legal limit. The facilities the children are kept in have been described by the New York Times as “akin to jails.”
“Migrant children are being forced to sleep on gym mats with foil sheets and go for days without showering as the Border Patrol struggles to handle thousands of young Central Americans who are surging across the southwestern border, some of them as young as a year old,” The New York Times reported as the illegal immigration levels surged. “Many of the children interviewed by … lawyers in recent days said they had not been allowed outdoors for days on end, confined to an overcrowded tent.”
