Harris failed to combat ‘root causes’ of illegal immigration, former Border Patrol union chief says

Vice President Harris has failed to address the root causes of illegal immigration after being trusted with the task by President Biden in 2021, according to the former Border Patrol union leader.

"It’s very disappointing," Brandon Judd, who recently retired as president of the Border Patrol Union, told Fox News Digital. "We gave her the policies that she needed to implement. She refused to implement those."

Judd’s comments come as Harris’ record on immigration and border security has faced increased scrutiny in the days after Biden’s decision to drop out of the race and endorse his vice president to replace him, with critics saying Harris has failed on one of the defining issues of the 2024 election.

Biden tapped Harris to lead the administration’s effort to combat migration in March 2021, a response to critics who were already noting the increased flow of migrants just months into his presidency.

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Vice President Harris (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images/File)

According to a report from the Associated Press on the day of the announcement, Harris was tasked with overseeing diplomatic efforts in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Administration officials told AP that Harris would work to press those countries to better enforce immigration laws and secure their own borders while also being tasked with coming up with a long-term strategy to address the root causes of migration from the countries.

"The vice president has agreed – among the multiple other things that I have her leading, and I appreciate it – agreed to lead our diplomatic effort to work with those nations to accept returnees and enhance migration enforcement at their borders," Biden said during the announcement.

"Needless to say, the work will not be easy," Harris said at the time. "But it is important work."

Later in 2021, Harris negotiated a memorandum of understanding with Mexico that saw the U.S. send $4 billion to help Central American countries address root causes of illegal migration, with private companies kicking in an extra investment of $5.2 billion to the cause.

But the vice president’s work on the issue quickly fizzled out, an NBC News report published Thursday revealed, noting that Harris visited Mexico in June 2021 to sign an agreement that resulted in $4 billion in direct assistance and $5.2 billion in private-public investment but has not visited the border or countries to its south since January 2022.

Since 2021, the Root Causes strategy has made no new commitments, the report notes.

Nevertheless, the share of attempted crossings by migrants from the Northern Triangle has dropped significantly since 2021. According to government statistics, migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador made up 41% of all Border Patrol apprehensions in 2021. That number dropped to 22% of crossings in fiscal 2023, the data shows.

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Despite the decrease in Northern Triangle crossings, illegal crossings overall reached all-time highs in 2021, 2022 and 2023, with migrants making their way from all over the world to the U.S. border. Thousands of those migrants were coming from China, with government data showing more than 30,000 Chinese migrants were arrested illegally crossing the southern border in 2023.

President Biden speaks with Customs and Border Protection officers during his visit to the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, on Jan. 8, 2023. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

Judd, who worked as the union chief for most of the current administration, said the issues Harris identified were not the reason behind spikes in crossings.

"The major problem is the root causes she identified: political instability, climate and crime," Judd said. "That was the same under President Trump, yet we did not see an explosion in illegal immigration under the Trump administration."

The Trump administration saw a spike of its own in attempted crossings in 2018, eventually reaching a 12-year high in March 2019. The administration's response to the spike led to a steady decrease in crossings for the rest of the year, a trend that accelerated at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But those spikes reached new heights under the current administration, something Judd argued was because of the "magnet that [Harris] created, which is allowing people to be released into the United States."

Harris has long advocated for more lax enforcement for undocumented migrants. While serving as California’s attorney general in 2015, she said an "undocumented immigrant is not a criminal."

"I'm a career prosecutor. I've personally prosecuted everything from low-level offenses to homicides. Unfortunately, I know what crime looks like. I know what a criminal looks like who's committing a crime. An undocumented immigrant is not a criminal," Harris said, according to a report in Newsweek.

In a 2019 interview with NPR while serving as a California U.S. senator, Harris said she disagreed "with any policy that would turn America’s back on people who are fleeing harm."

Vice President Harris (Leigh Vogel/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images/File)

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"I frankly believe that it is contrary to everything that we have symbolically and actually said we stand for," Harris said. "And so, I would not enforce a law that would reject people and turn them away without giving them a fair and due process to determine if we should give them asylum and refuge."

During her run in the 2020 Democrat primary cycle in June 2019, Harris vowed during a debate that she would "immediately put in place a meaningful process for reviewing the cases for asylum."

"I will release children from cages. I will get rid of the private detention centers," Harris said during the debate.

When asked during that debate if an immigrant should be deported if their only offense is being undocumented, Harris responded "no."

"They should not be deported," Harris said.

Harris’ idea of looser enforcement eventually made its way to the White House, with Biden announcing in September 2021 that the U.S. would break from the aggressive approach to deportations of the Trump administration and instead only prioritize removing migrants who were deemed to pose a threat to public safety, according to an Associated Press report.

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Harris’ tone seemingly changed during a January 2022 trip to Honduras, her last to the border or countries south of it, where she told migrants not to attempt the journey to the United States.

"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. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border," Harris said at the time.

However, that now infamous line also sparked backlash from the progressive wing of her own party.

"This is disappointing to see," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said on X, then-Twitter, in response to the Harris "do not come" line. "First, seeking asylum at any US border is a 100% legal method of arrival. 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."

The seemingly mixed messages from Democrats have come as border crossings reached an all-time high under Biden, though those numbers have dropped since peaking in December 2023, reaching a three-year low in June.

Biden has also taken more recent action on the border, announcing an order this year that suspended entry for some migrants attempting to cross the border.

Meanwhile, a White House official touted the investments the vice president secured in Northern Triangle countries, where Harris "continues to lead the effort to address the root causes of migration."

"These investments are creating jobs and have connected more than 4.5 million people to the internet and brought more than 2.5 million people into the formal financial system," the official told Fox News Digital. "Under the Vice President’s leadership, the Biden-Harris Administration continues to implement the Root Causes Strategy. As a part of this strategy, the Administration is on track to meet its commitment to provide $4 billion to the region over four years and continues to work to combat corruption, reduce violence, and empower women."

Vice President Harris speaks during a meeting with Guatemalan justice sector leaders at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., on May 19, 2021. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

But Judd said Harris still lacks an understanding of the actual root causes of the migration crisis.

"Nothing has changed from President Trump to this administration," Judd said of the situation in Central and South America. "Political instability was still there, the crime was still there, and the climate hasn’t changed from Trump to this administration, yet illegal immigration has exploded. … She has not addressed any of the root causes, and she refuses to recognize what the actual root causes are."

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Judd said the opportunity for jobs is the primary motivation for migrants to come to the U.S., and if some of Harris’ root-cause initiatives had been more successful, there would be less illegal migration. He also said Harris has failed on both the border security and root-causes fronts.

"If she would have dealt with what she identified, we would have less illegal immigration, but she didn’t even deal with those causes that she identified," Judd said.

Those failures have caused angst among the members of the Border Patrol Judd used to represent, he added.

"They’re very frustrated that she’s now the nominee because every one of us, all Border Patrol agents, understand and recognize that she had the power to do what was necessary to secure the border," Judd said. "She didn’t do it."