She also rejected\u00a0GOP criticism that she hasn\u2019t yet visited the border.\u00a0\u201cAnd I haven\u2019t been to Europe,\u201d she said in the interview. \u201cAnd I mean, I don\u2019t understand the point that you\u2019re making. I\u2019m not discounting the importance of the border.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trump\u00a0vs. Biden:<\/strong>Trump expelled refugees against CDC advice. As COVID subsides, why won’t Biden admit them?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n But it was Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s comments about Harris that are raising the most eyebrows.\u00a0“This is disappointing to see,\u201d she tweeted. “First, seeking asylum at any U.S. border is a 100% legal method of arrival. Second, the US\u00a0spent decades contributing to regime change and destabilization in Latin America. We can’t help set someone’s house on fire and then blame them for fleeing.”<\/p>\n Vice President Kamala Harris and Guatemalan Foreign Minister Pedro Brolo in Guatemala City on June 6, 2021.<\/p>\n Omar Ornelas\/USA TODAY (Photo: Omar Ornelas\/USA Today Network)<\/span><\/p>\n According to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, the United States\u00a0recorded more than 178,000 migrants \u2013 many from Guatemala \u2013 trying to cross\u00a0the U.S.-Mexico border in April. It was the highest one-month total in 20 years.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n While no one is expecting Kamala Harris to solve the migrant crisis overnight, and even though President Joe Biden expressed the same sentiment\u00a0in March, her blunt words caught me off guard. Because she is a\u00a0daughter of an Indian immigrant mother, I suppose\u00a0I expected Harris to be more sympathetic to the dangerous journey migrants make to America and their reasons for taking those risks. It was jarring to see the Biden administration, and particularly Harris, sound as cold and heartless as the Trump administration on the issue of migrants.<\/p>\n Coyotes, killers and cartel members: <\/strong>Why Biden’s border policy won’t keep us safe.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI just saw that the veep told refugees today -Do Not Come,\u2019\u201d journalist Maria Hinojosa tweeted. \u201cHonestly I\u2019m just gonna tell you I\u2019m heartbroken. For a woman daughter of immigrants to say this to people who are desperate is just heartbreaking. Stay and be killed by your lover? Stay and be killed by the gangs?\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n While I couldn’t agree more with Hinojosa, does Harris have any choice but to be super tough on immigration? At the very least, as the first Black and Asian woman to get the second most powerful job in the country, she must maintain the appearance of toughness.<\/p>\n Now that Biden has put Harris in charge of this deeply political and complicated issue, as a woman of color, Harris would be getting much more intense and negative blowback if she had flung open her arms with a huge \u201cCome to America\u201d sign, and came off as soft on immigration on her first official trip to Guatemala and Mexico.<\/p>\n The vice president\u2019s current debacle reminds us why positions are not enough to ensure change, and\u00a0as a woman of color in power, you can’t make everyone happy.\u00a0<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2021\/06\/08\/USAT\/547f67bd-867d-419a-bd3a-4a9966d25652-XXX_Kamala_Harris1131.JPG\")
<\/p>\nNo choice but to be super tough<\/h2>\n