The union representing U.S. Border Patrol agents slammed Vice President Kamala Harris, claiming she was nowhere to be found when needed, after she visited the southern border in Arizona on Friday.
"Fact check on Harris speech in Douglas, Arizona: Today, VP Harris claimed that she played a role in increasing Border Patrol Agent overtime pay," the National Border Patrol Council wrote on the social media platform, X.
"This couldn't be further from the truth. As with all things border related she was no where to be found when we needed her," the post continued.
During her visit on Friday, Harris criticized former President Donald Trump for the crisis at the border, claiming he tanked a bipartisan border bill.
"It was the strongest border security bill we have seen in decades. It was endorsed by the Border Patrol union, and it should be in effect today, producing results in real time right now for our country," she said during her speech. "But Donald Trump tanked it… because, you see, he prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem."
Trump and other Republicans have criticized the bill, which came up earlier this year, arguing it allowed up to 5,000 border encounters a day before temporarily shutting down the border if it lasted more than a week. But the bill was also criticized as a way to legalize and facilitate the massive influx of illegal aliens entering the U.S., which the House Homeland Security Committee estimates has exceeded 10 million people during the Biden administration.
Republicans have been critical of Harris's role as the "border czar" for the past few years, blaming her in large part for the current surge in illegal border crossings.
Harris's timing for her trip to the border couldn't have been worse. On that same day, Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Tx., released a letter from the Deputy Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acknowledging that there are currently 13,099 non-detained non-citizens with murder convictions in the country, and 15,811 with sexual offense convictions out of a total of 425,431 convicted criminals.
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