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      Kamala Harris suffers bumpy baptism over immigration on first foreign trip

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      Kamala Harris has returned to the US from her first foreign trip and big test since becoming vice-president – and taking over the hot-potato issue of immigration – battered by criticism over her harsh “Do not come” message to desperate migrants and her testy ambivalence over visiting the US-Mexico border.Harris arrived back on US soil from a three-day trip to Guatemala and Mexico just as Joe Biden flew out to the UK on Wednesday on his first overseas venture since winning the White House.His may be a higher-stakes visit aimed at reassuring European allies and confronting Russia after the divisive era of Donald Trump.But Harris’s more short-haul foray was never going to be plain sailing, either with the aim being to tackle “the root causes” of hundreds of thousands of migrants making the dangerous trek to America’s southern border, seeking entry to the US.Most are attempting unlawful entry or trying to appeal to the border authorities to allow them to apply for asylum through the US courts.With factors such as poverty and government corruption, a legacy of war and dictatorship, and as much foreign hindrance as help in Central American politics over the decades, any trip by a new US president or vice-president is fraught with high risk of failure.On top of that, newer trends such as increased migration forced by the climate crisis guaranteed that Harris was never going to achieve one-trip fixes.But although her hosts declared her visits a success, the “get tough” stance she touted with leaders over corruption was overshadowed by an awkward interview and criticism from US progressive torchbearers such as the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over her stark remarks aimed at migrants.Ocasio-Cortez called out Harris on Twitter, saying her comments were “disappointing to see”.“First, seeking asylum at any US border is a 100% legal method of arrival,” said the congresswoman, adding: “Second, the US spent 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.”Several human rights groups also spoke out to criticize Harris’s remarks.With unlawful crossings to the US over the US-Mexico border accelerating during the first months of the Biden administration, as US border authorities reported they encountered nearly 19,000 unaccompanied children crossing in March, the pressure on Harris has been intense.Biden put her in charge of dealing with the issue of the border in particular, within wider immigration policy, as the early weeks of his presidency featured stark reports and images of children crammed into detention centres on the US side of the border, with legal and social processing systems overwhelmed.Overall, more than 170,000 encounters were reported on the border in April, between migrants, mostly from Central America, and the US authorities, the highest level in more than 20 years.Harris, who has been under pressure at home to visit the US-Mexico border since she was given the role, but has not yet done so, focused her three-day visit on economic development, climate and food insecurity.In Guatemala, the origin of almost half the migrants gathering at the US border in recent months, Harris and the president, Alejandro Giammattei, expressed optimism that they could work together.The Biden administration has earmarked almost $4bn in commitments to help address the “root causes” of migration. Alongside that, Harris was also frank in her message, saying “the goal of our work is to help Guatemalans find hope at home”.But it was when Harris said in an address: “I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border: ‘Do not come, do not come,’” that heads all over the US political and media landscape turned.It is no different a message than people in the Biden administration have delivered publicly before. But the stark statement actually made in a country where people are driven to head to the US by desperation prompted a strong response.Ocasio-Cortez described her comments as “disappointing” and noted that it is legal to seek asylum in the US from persecution in another country.Harris responded only obliquely, saying: “I’m really clear: we have to deal with the root causes and that is my hope. Period.”Harris was also forced to fend off criticism that she had yet to visit the US-Mexico border herself since becoming vice-president. Such visits are a perilous photo op for leaders looking to establish foreign and domestic policy credentials.And she dealt with the topic awkwardly when asked in an early morning TV interview about why she hadn’t visited the border this year, saying she hadn’t been to Europe either.“Well, we are going to the border,” Harris she added to NBC news anchor Lester Holt. “We have to deal with what’s happening at the border, there’s no question about that.”Moving on from a short stay in Guatemala to Mexico City, Harris sought to assure poor and threatened populations of Latin America on Tuesday that the United States has “the capacity to give people a sense of hope” and is focused on “tangible” results “as opposed to grand gestures”.The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said Mexico was in a completely new phase of relations with the US.Eduardo Gamarra, professor of international relations at Florida International University, told the Guardian it was an important trip. “Harris issued a very significant statement in terms of rebutting the Republicans’ position that Democrats are running an ‘open border’ policy, and she made it quite clear to Giammattei that the US is willing to invest but there have to be significant changes in the way corruption is handled,” he said.[embedded content] More

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      Kamala Harris questioned over not going to US-Mexico border – video

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      US vice-president Kamala Harris has brushed off questions about her decision not to go to the US-Mexico border as part of her work to address the spike in migration. Harris, who was asked about the issue during visits to Mexico and Guatemala, said: ‘I’ve been to the border before and I will go again, but when I’m in Guatemala dealing with root causes, I think we should have a conversation about what is going on in Guatemala’, Harris said. Republican lawmakers have criticised her for not prioritising the shared frontier

      Kamala Harris takes on a new role as she heads on her first overseas trip
      AOC condemns Kamala Harris for telling Guatemalan migrants not to come to US More

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      AOC condemns Kamala Harris for telling Guatemalan migrants not to come to US

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      The progressive New York representative Alexandria Oscasio-Cortez has criticized Vice-President Kamala Harris, for saying undocumented migrants from Guatemala should not come to the US.On her first foreign trip as vice-president, Harris visited Guatemala on Monday. At a press conference with Guatemala’s president, Alejandro Giammattei, the former California senator spoke about investigating corruption and human trafficking in Central America, and described a future where Guatemalans could find “hope at home”.But she also had a clear message that undocumented Guatemalan migrants would not find solace at the US border under the Biden administration.“I want to be clear to folks in the region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border,” she said. “Do not come. Do not come.”Later on Monday, Oscasio-Cortez condemned Harris on Twitter, calling her comments “disappointing to see”.“First, seeking asylum at any US border is a 100% legal method of arrival,” said the congresswoman, an influential voice on the Democratic left since her upset win in a 2018 primary and widely known as AOC.“Second, the US spent 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.”Several human rights groups also spoke out.Rachel Schmidtke, Latin America advocate at the non-profit Refugees International, said: “We continue to urge the Biden administration to build policies that recognize that many Guatemalans will need to seek protection until the longstanding drivers of forced displacement are addressed and realign its message to the Guatemalan people to reflect America’s commitment to the right to seek protection internationally.”The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, a non-profit that works with asylum seekers, tweeted: “Kamala Harris, seeking asylum is legal. Turning back asylum seekers is illegal, dangerous, & oftentimes sends them back to their deaths. Seeking asylum is a right under US and international law.”Despite Joe Biden moving to undo Trump-era restrictions at the border, including instituting changes to the asylum process, Harris’s speech underlined a continued stance of turning back undocumented migrants.Central America has long been affected by poverty and violence, amid entrenched cycles of political instability partly caused by criminal elites. Experts contend the US has often aided oppressive regimes. Despite the litany of dangers migrants often face when traveling north, the journey is often safer than remaining at home.“People are leaving because the corrupt governments (supported by the US) have tolerated and encouraged the growth of these criminal organizations,” said Jeff Faux, founder of the Economic Policy Institute, in an interview with USA Today.In April, according to CNN, more than 178,000 migrants arrived at the US-Mexico border, the highest one-month total in two decades. More

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      Kamala Harris tells migrants 'do not come' during talks in Guatemala – video

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      The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, said she had held ‘robust’ talks with the Guatemalan president, Alejandro Giammattei, as she sought to find ways of deterring undocumented immigration from Central America to the United States. Speaking during a news conference with Giammattei, Harris delivered a blunt message to people thinking of making the dangerous journey north: ‘Do not come’

      Kamala Harris faces doubts over retooled US policy in Central America
      Kamala Harris takes on a new role as she heads on her first overseas trip More

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      Biden will be flanked by two women as he addresses Congress in historic first

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      When Joe Biden gives his first speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, viewers will be treated to a historic first – the sight of two women, Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi, seated behind the president.Harris, the first female, Black and south Asian vice-president, and Pelosi, the first female House speaker, will take up their positions as Biden reflects on the first 99 days of his presidency and lays out his vision for the 1362 days to come.Their presence demonstrates a measure of progress in the quest for gender equality in the US – even if Harris and Pelosi will be flanking an aging white, male president – and Harris, in particular, proves a contrast to the past four years, which saw Donald Trump willed on by a bewitched Mike Pence.Biden is expected to use the speech, which comes before his 100th day in office on Thursday, to address the state of the Covid pandemic, and push the $2tn infrastructure plan he unveiled at the end of March. The president will also discuss the need for better healthcare, according to the Washington Post, and will renew his call for police reform.Viewers are likely to see Harris and Pelosi rise to their feet repeatedly during Biden’s address to applaud – something Pelosi largely avoided during Trump’s speeches to Congress.Biden, as vice-president, spent eight years seated behind Barack Obama as the latter addressed joint sessions of Congress, with Harris assuming Biden’s former seat for the first time on Wednesday.Pelosi has plenty of experience in these settings, having served as speaker of the House since 2019, and previously from 2007 to 2011.In 2019 her parental-style clapping of Donald Trump during his State of the Union address became a viral moment, while a year later she was lauded by the left after she tore up a copy of Trump’s speech.A president’s first address to Congress is usually an extravagant affair, witnessed by hundreds of guests, but the Covid pandemic means the audience was scaled back for Biden’s speech. Only one member of the supreme court – Chief Justice John Roberts – was invited, and members of Congress were told not to bring guests. More

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      'Accountability, not yet justice': how the US reacted to the Chauvin verdict – video

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      Across many US cities, there were scenes of jubilation after Derek Chauvin was found guilty for the murder of George Floyd. Crowds gathered outside the court room in Minneapolis as well as at the scene of George Floyd’s death. Loud cheering erupted from Floyd’s family members watching in an adjacent courthouse room. But the elation was tinged with wariness and concern that while justice was done for one Black person, it would not be enough by itself

      ‘Just the beginning’: joy and wariness as crowds celebrate Chauvin verdict
      ‘My brother got justice’: George Floyd’s family praises guilty verdict
      ‘The work continues’: Black Americans stress that police reform is still needed More

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      ‘Enough of the senseless killings’: Biden calls Chauvin verdict ‘a start’ as Democrats demand action

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      Addressing the nation on Tuesday evening, Joe Biden said the guilty verdict for the former Minneapolis police office Derek Chauvin was “a start”. But, he said, “in order to deliver real change and reform, we can and we must do more”.“Protests unified people of every race and generation in peace and with purpose to say enough,” Biden said. “Enough. Enough of the senseless killings. Today’s verdict is a step forward.“The guilty verdict does not bring back George,” he continued, noting that he had called the Floyd family after the news had come. “George’s legacy will not be just about his death, but about what we must do in his memory.”Many lawmakers and public figures celebrated the verdict while also calling for more to be done, echoing years-long demands by Black Lives Matter activists for systemic change.Cori Bush, the Black Lives Matter activist who was elected last year to represent Missouri in the US House of Representatives, said the verdict “is accountability, but it’s not yet justice.”Kamala Harris, who spoke before Biden, said the administration would work to help pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a bill that Harris – as a senator – introduced last summer along with Senator Cory Booker and Representative Karen Bass. “This bill is part of George Floyd’s legacy,” she said. “The president and I will continue to urge the Senate to pass this legislation, not as a panacea for every problem, but as a start. This work is long overdue.”Democratic lawmakers echoed Harris, while Republicans, who have obstructed the bill’s passage for nearly a year, remained largely silent.[embedded content]Bass, a Democrat of California, said she hoped the verdict today would re-energize efforts to pass the police reform bill into law. The bill passed the House this year with no Republican support – and it faces a major hurdle in the Senate, where Republicans are expected to block it with a filibuster.“We need to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and put it on President Biden’s desk,” she said, speaking with members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) on Capitol Hill. “Because that will be the first step to transforming policing.”In any case, she later told reporters, the Chauvin verdict “gives us hope” for some sort of policing bill. Bass has been in informal talks with Republican lawmakers to develop a bipartisan compromise and hopes a deal can be reached “by the time we hit the anniversary of George Floyd’s death” on 25 May, she told reporters.The rare guilty verdict came as a shock and a relief to many lawmakers and public figures. Following its announcement Bass hugged Gwen Moore, a Democratic representative of Wisconsin and fellow member of the CBC. “I was knocked off my feet,” Moore told Bass, as they embraced.Ilhan Omar, the US representative for Minneapolis, said the verdict represents a type of justice that feels “new and long overdue,” adding: “Alhamdulillah!”Remarks by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, however, raised some eyebrows. In an address from Capitol Hill, she said: “Thank you, George Floyd, for sacrificing your life for justice. For being there to call out to your mom, how heartbreaking was that, call out for your mom, ‘I can’t breathe,’” she said.As many listeners and watchers pointed out, Floyd didn’t choose to sacrifice himself or to be a martyr – he was killed.“I know someone wrote this for her. Someone else edited the draft. Most likely yet another person approved it. And then she said it,” said the writer Mikki Kendall. “This is a long trail of fail.”Barack Obama praised the efforts of Black Lives Matter activists and people around the world protested in the aftermath of Floyd’s killing.“As we continue the fight, we can draw strength from the millions of people – especially young people – who have marched and protested and spoken up over the last year, shining a light on inequity and calling for change,” Barack and Michelle Obama said in a joint statement. “Justice is closer today not simply because of this verdict, but because of their work.”In a call to Floyd’s family, Biden reiterated his promise to enact meaningful change. “We’re going to stay at it until we get it done,” he said. More

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      Kamala Harris sidesteps question of her role to take Biden's message on the road

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      White House aides and allies stress it’s still too early to define the type of portfolio Kamala Harris will have as vice-president. They bristle at the suggestion that Harris would be confined to one project or focus on just one subject area, as some previous vice-presidents were pegged to do.But over the last week, the former California senator has once again taken on an increasingly familiar mantle: top surrogate for promoting the Biden administration’s agenda.On the one hand that’s a powerful position: it puts Harris – the first female vice-president in US history and probably a strong future contender for its first female commander-in-chief – at the forefront of US politics. But on the other, it is the latest example of Harris being used on an ad hoc basis, lacking a defining mission or role.In the days since Joe Biden signed his $1.9tn stimulus package Harris has embarked on a cross-country tour to sell the impact of the new law. She made stops in Nevada, Colorado and then Georgia last week. She is expected to make more trips in the coming days.“I really believe that this will support our economy,” Harris said during her stop in Colorado.The vice-president’s tour, days after an administration passes a massive piece of legislation into law, is not entirely unusual. It’s in part a move to assuage fears that this stimulus could follow the same fate as the $800bn rescue law in 2009. After passage of that bill, critics argued that the Obama administration was not aggressive in responding to Republican attacks about the bill. At the same time, liberals have argued that law did not go far enough.So this time, the Biden administration is trying to pre-empt similar critiques about his rescue package.Roy Neel, who served as a chief of staff to the then vice-president, Al Gore, said it was clear the Biden administration wants to use Harris as a sort of “floater” – someone who isn’t consigned to one corner of the administration or its initiatives.“They’re saying basically what the president wants her to be which is sort of a floater, to work on anything that’s important at the time,” Neel said. “Right now, selling the stimulus is one of the most important things to him.”For Harris, though, the trip stacks on top of her undertaking a media campaign in West Virginia and Arizona while the stimulus bill was still making its way through Congress. But that push partially backfired on Harris and resulted in proxy sparring with Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, one of the senators Harris ostensibly set out to win over.Harris’s trips over the last week suggest that the Biden team still see her as a potent salesperson and rather than assign her to run briefings with governors on Covid relief, as Mike Pence did when he served as vice-president to Donald Trump, or when Biden oversaw the Obama administration’s recovery efforts early on.Still, that has prompted multiple questions about Harris and how she will be involved in the Biden administration. Why not run the Covid meetings right now like Pence did, officials have been asked, instead of Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York?“We do know that she is a potent tool and it’s clear that the Biden administration is more than happy to deploy her in support of its signature initiatives so far,” said Yusef Robb, a veteran Democratic strategist. “Look, Kamala Harris is exciting, talented and can personally speak to people of color, women, parents and others who have been most affected by the pandemic.”At the same time Harris has also been visible on the foreign policy front, a move that might prove beneficial in the future if the current vice-president ever ended up running for president and needed to highlight her experience with world leaders. She has reportedly begun regular private lunches with the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, a meeting that other presidents have usually taken themselves. She has also had one-on-one conversation with a number of world leaders early on in the administration.That is really good for her because it doesn’t pigeonhole her into any one government function like the environment or healthcare or somethingNeel said that suggests that Biden is “comfortable including and relying on the vice-president to be involved in things where she doesn’t have much of a background”.Neel added: “That is really good for her because it doesn’t pigeonhole her into any one government function like the environment or healthcare or something. So he’s obviously using her everywhere it makes sense as part of the team.”Democrats stress the Biden administration is in its earliest days and the role Harris will play is still forming.Her rise has been extremely fast compared with previous vice-presidents. She did not finish her first term in the Senate before Biden picked her as vice-president and before that was attorney general of California. But her background as a prosecutor, which resulted in a viral moment or two in the Senate, has not been visibly utilized since she became vice-president – yet.Harris’s future, though, depends on the success of Biden’s administration. If Biden leaves office popular, Harris will be regarded as the heir apparent.“She is pushing forward Joe’s vision for America, just like she said she would,” Robb added. More