PREVIEW - Vice President Harris To Make First Visit To US Southern Border To Observe Crisis

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th June, 2021) Vice President Kamala Harris will make her first visit to the US-Mexico border as a member of the Biden administration on Friday to get a first-hand look at the crisis.

"El Paso [Texas] is important, it represents larger border dynamics and it is a critical, critical part of understanding the human experience of migration," Harris' senior adviser Symone Sanders told reporters on Thursday. "In El Paso, there are significant numbers of migrants arriving and processing has been put in place for unaccompanied minors."

Harris will visit the Texas border city of El Paso to tour a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) central processing center and to speak with local pro-immigration advocates, shelter and legal service providers, and faith-based non-governmental organizations about their efforts to help migrants.

The vice president will use the trip to highlight the Biden administration's work to build a fair and humane immigration system, Sanders said, adding that the current president inherited a broken and inhumane immigration system from the Trump administration.

Harris will be accompanied by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, and Congresswoman Veronica Escobar. They will take questions from the press at the end of the trip.

The trip to El Paso is building on Harris' diplomatic work with the governments of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, to address the root causes of the migration surge at the border, Sanders said.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott criticized Harris for choosing to avoid the Rio Grande Valley and Del Rio sectors of the border where a majority of the migrants are entering the United States illegally to ask for asylum.

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data revealed this month that the number of asylum-seeking migrants apprehended along the southern border with Mexico in May set another record, reaching a new 21-year monthly high of 180,034. A total of 929,868 migrants have been apprehended illegally crossing the US-Mexico since October, putting the Biden administration on pace to break the previous annual record of 977,509 set in 2019.

The United States has apprehended more than 1.5 million illegal migrants at the southern border with Mexico in 1986, 1996, 1998-2000, according to CBP data.

on Friday to get a first-hand look at the crisis.

"El Paso [Texas] is important, it represents larger border dynamics and it is a critical, critical part of understanding the human experience of migration," Harris' senior adviser Symone Sanders told reporters on Thursday. "In El Paso, there are significant numbers of migrants arriving and processing has been put in place for unaccompanied minors."

Harris will visit the Texas border city of El Paso to tour a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) central processing center and to speak with local pro-immigration advocates, shelter and legal service providers, and faith-based non-governmental organizations about their efforts to help migrants.

The vice president will use the trip to highlight the Biden administration's work to build a fair and humane immigration system, Sanders said, adding that the current president inherited a broken and inhumane immigration system from the Trump administration.

Harris will be accompanied by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, and Congresswoman Veronica Escobar. They will take questions from the press at the end of the trip.

The trip to El Paso is building on Harris' diplomatic work with the governments of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, to address the root causes of the migration surge at the border, Sanders said.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott criticized Harris for choosing to avoid the Rio Grande Valley and Del Rio sectors of the border where a majority of the migrants are entering the United States illegally to ask for asylum.

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data revealed this month that the number of asylum-seeking migrants apprehended along the southern border with Mexico in May set another record, reaching a new 21-year monthly high of 180,034. A total of 929,868 migrants have been apprehended illegally crossing the US-Mexico since October, putting the Biden administration on pace to break the previous annual record of 977,509 set in 2019.

The United States has apprehended more than 1.5 million illegal migrants at the southern border with Mexico in 1986, 1996, 1998-2000, according to CBP data.