C'monShe was specifically put in charge of dealing with the root of the problem in Central America. No, we cannot agree that she was put in charge of the "border problem" in general. That's just not accurate. From the Reuters article...
First, Harris was never given the portfolio of border czar, said Alan Bersin, who embraced the label as a special representative for border affairs under Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. "This was not the job assigned to VP Harris," he said.
Instead, Biden asked Harris to lead diplomatic efforts to reduce poverty, violence and corruption in Central America's Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, as well as engage with Mexico on the issue.
It was similar to the job Biden had when he was vice president.
But that was an overly broad mission, Murphy said.
"It's hard in a short period of time to come up with a strategy that impacts the very real and complicated psychological decision-making that people in those countries go through when they're deciding to come to the United States," Murphy said in a phone interview.
And within months of Harris taking the job, the focus on the three Central American countries was out of step with the reality at the border - where illegal immigration from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela was spiking, several former officials and outside experts said.
"She started off, in a sense, at a disadvantage because everyone was focusing on those three countries in the Northern Triangle," said Roberta Jacobson, who served as a coordinator for the U.S.-Mexico border in the early months of the Biden administration. "Meanwhile, the migrant population was changing dramatically."
And, for the Republicans to link her directly to the border without telling the whole story was "misleading".
She was put in charge with Presidential Backing to solve the problem.
We needed to properly process all those who passed through for two important reasons:
1) Disease and Health problems
2) Security of those involved with possible crime or terrorism
What would I have been done?
1 Visit all the border facilities and photo documented the capacities. Get the info as to how many could be care for in a humane way. Use all the White House resources to make a good presentation.
2 Visit those countries she made speeches in and share those photos and capabilities with the governments and ask them to hold back the flow while the US prepares for them. Ask for data in terms of number of migrants etc so that the US could be prepared
3 Bring that data back to the US and present it t the House of Representatives and Senate so that they could see the need and scope of the situation. Get Bills passes or executive orders to build facilities that could properly process and contain the expected flow
4 Build out the needed facilities. They need not be permanent, but they need to exist.
5 Hire additional healthcare and other workers to staff it.
6 Process those folks in an orderly fashion so that they get the proper health screenings and inoculations needed. Keep them in quarantine until they are in sound health
7 Allow them to enter into American society in the same way all the previous generations did. Proud and with their heads up, not afraid and needing to live on the streets.
What did Biden / Harris do?
Pretend like there was nothing going on to the average citizen and let the refugees slip through with a wink and a blind eye
By turning her back on this issue it not only affected the country due to the way these individuals were unceremoniously left off but also to these individuals who were denied proper healthcare at the point of entry and a plan to meld the into society.
The economy would have benefited due to the construction and those employed, too.