Emily Compagno: Kamala Harris' border trip was 'just for PR to get the media off her back'

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Emily Compagno: VP Harris Border trip as ‘just for PR’ to appease the press

‘The Big Saturday Show’ discusses the border crisis and Vice President Kamala Harris visiting the southern border.

Fox News contributor Emily Compagno said on "The Big Saturday Show" that Vice President Kamala Harris' border trip was "just for PR to get the media off her back."

"We are seeing a host of migrants and migrant children being kept in devastating conditions, and the administration just flushes them out throughout the system and claims they’re being taken care of, but really they’re just being put into more deplorable conditions," Compagno said. 

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Compagno mentioned how state attorney generals and district attorneys are raising concerns about emergency shelters not having suitable standards for those migrants who are detained and added how many of the children in these facilities are on "suicide watch." 

"Yet we’re hearing from this administration that all is fine, everything’s well because she went on a visit and seems to have checked a box," she said. "Unfortunately, I think this trip was, frankly, just for PR so she can get the media off her back that kept asking when are you going to go."

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The Vice President's border trip came under fire as critics point out that she's steering clear of the areas that have been hardest hit by the ongoing immigration crisis. Harris traveled to El Paso, Texas, on Friday, 93 days after President Biden first tapped her to deal with the "root causes" of the border crisis. 

"If Vice President Harris truly wanted to assess the situation at the border, she'd head to McAllen and sites along the Rio Grande Valley," a senior border official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Fox News. "It will be worth seeing if this trip extends beyond a rubber stamp of ‘I visited the border.’" 

Tom Homan, former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) chief, said Harris "needs to go to the epicenter of this crisis."  

"Instead of going there and talking to the men and women dealing with that crisis and taking care of thousands of unaccompanied children, she picks El Paso because she doesn't want to see the devastation that her administration's policies have caused," Homan said.  

"Now, El Paso, is seeing a rise in crossings, absolutely a rise in drug crossings, but when you look at the crisis, why would you not go to the epicenter and talk to the men and women of border patrol and see what's going on?" Homan noted separately in a Friday Fox News interview.

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Washington Post reporter Nick Miroff pointed out that Harris' trip to El Paso allows her to avoid harder-hit areas in the Rio Grande Valley, where even Democratic officials have been critical of the Biden administration's response to the border crisis. The Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Sector has been especially hard hit by the crisis. 

Fox News' Peter Hasson contributed to this report.