Cruz criticizes Harris for visiting border after criticizing her for not visiting border

After repeatedly complaining that Vice President Kamala Harris had not visited the U.S.-Mexico border, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) complained on Wednesday about Harris’ planned trip there.

According to a press release from the White House, Harris will visit El Paso, Texas, on Friday along with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Appearing on Fox News, Cruz said, “She announces that they’re going to El Paso. El Paso is a lovely city, it is a beautiful place in Texas. It is not also — it also doesn’t happen to be the locus of the crisis. … She’s going where the height of the problem isn’t.”

He said, “Let me tell you what Kamala needs to do. Kamala, you need to go to the Rio Grande Valley.”

In March, President Joe Biden tasked Harris with working on immigration issues, including with Central American governments to address the root causes of migration. In June, the vice president visited Guatemala and Mexico for official talks on the issue.

For months, Cruz has been attacking the Biden administration on immigration, frequently repeating the claim that the border is in a state of “crisis.” Republicans in Congress began using the term “border crisis” at the beginning of the Biden administration after the anti-immigrant hate group Federation for American Immigration Reform used it in a press release the day after Biden’s inauguration.

Cruz’s official accounts — @TedCruz and @SenTedCruz — have published at least 227 tweets attacking the Biden administration over the “crisis,” including 12 tweets specifically attacking Harris for not visiting the border region..

On June 7, Cruz wrote, “It speaks volumes that Border Czar Harris is still avoiding visiting the southern border.”

“She should come to Texas and see the crisis firsthand,” Cruz wrote on June 8.

Expert on immigration have said that the rise in the number of apprehensions of people crossing the southern border into the United States can likely be attributed to seasonal shifts in migration patterns, shifts that were noted during the Trump presidency as well.

Cruz has falsely claimed that Biden has pursued an “open borders agenda” that encourages migrants to travel.

He has also complained that Biden halted construction on former President Donald Trump’s border wall project.

Cruz’s complaint is accurate: As he promised while campaigning, President Biden is no longer spending money to build the wall and has reallocated $2 billion that Trump took from military funding for the project.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.