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Vice President Harris to visit Mexico border this week

Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to the U.S. border with Mexico on Friday, with a stop planned for El Paso, Texas.

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It will be Harris’s first trip to the southern border since becoming vice president and being asked by President Joe Biden to lead diplomatic efforts to deal with the root causes of mass migration from Central America.

She is expected to be joined on the trip by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Politico is reporting.

Harris’s trip comes days before former President Donald Trump visits the border on June 30. Trump plans to go to the southern border with Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott and about a dozen House Republicans.

The House members accompanying the former president belong to the Republican Study Committee.

On Wednesday afternoon, Trump issued a statement about Harris’s plans to go to the border.

“After months of ignoring the crisis at the southern border, it is great that we got Kamala Harris to finally go and see the tremendous destruction and death that they’ve created – a direct result of Biden ending my very tough but fair Border policies,” the President’s statement read.

“If Governor Abbott and I weren’t going there next week, she would have never gone!” he added.

Abbott announced last week that Texas will continue to build the wall that was begun under Trump’s administration. The Texas Republican has pledged a $250 million down payment for the project.

Both Harris and Biden have been criticized by Republicans and some Democrats for not visiting the border as the number of migrants arriving each day has grown.

In April, some 6,000 immigrants were apprehended daily at the U.S./Mexico border.

Harris has defended her decision to stay away from the border by saying that her efforts have been focused on dealing with the underlying causes of migration in Northern Triangle nations and Mexico.