Congressional Republicans have leapt to blame President Joe Biden's administration for a seasonal influx of migrants—including asylum seekers—crossing the southern border, claiming these crossings are the reflection of a weak immigration policy.
After Biden enlisted Vice President Kamala Harris to spearhead the country's immigration reform effort, Republicans lamented that she hadn't taken a trip to the southern border, with some even regularly highlighting the number of days that passed.
This week, Vice President Harris visited the border city of El Paso, Texas where she toured a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility and had discussions with its staff and detainees there, including young immigrant girls.
Harris later said of U.S. immigration policy:
"This issue cannot be reduced to a political issue. We're talking about children. We're talking about families. We're talking about suffering. Our approach has to be thoughtful and effective."
Republicans predictably weren't satisfied, especially Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.
For months, Cruz has lambasted Harris on social media for holding off on a border visit.
But with the Vice President's border trip underway, Cruz is moving the goalposts, now claiming in a Fox News interview that she visited the wrong part of the border.
Watch below.
Cruz told Fox's John Roberts:
"El Paso is a lovely city. It is a beautiful place in Texas. It is not also, it also doesn't happen to be the locus of the crisis."
He went on to say Harris should've visited the Rio Grande Valley instead.
"Lemme tell you what Kamala needs to do. Kamala, you need to go to the Rio Grande Valley. Kamala, you need to go to McAllen. Kamala, you need to go to the Donna temp facility, which is the tent city your administration has built."
El Paso sees hundreds of border crossings per day, according to KFOXTV of Texas. Cruz, along with other congressional Republicans, even took a widely publicized trip to El Paso to call attention to the situation at the border.
Cruz's words didn't go unnoticed.
Some reminded Cruz of his own ill-advised trip to Mexico—to Cancún, to be exact—as his state suffered devastating winter storms.
Harris assures that improvements are being made on the situation at the border.
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