Is Kamala Harris a ‘failed border czar’?

BBC:

From its opening line, Donald Trump’s first television advertisement blasting rival Kamala Harris took aim at what his campaign believes is her biggest weakness – immigration.

“This is America’s border czar,” a narrator said, over images of the vice-president dancing, “and she’s failed us.”

A series of statistics followed, illustrating what the Trump campaign says took place under Ms Harris, who was given a role in dealing with the border crisis by President Joe Biden soon after his inauguration.

The figures in the video ranged from 10 million illegal border crossings to 250,000 fentanyl-related overdose deaths.

The voice concluded: “Kamala Harris: failed, weak, dangerously liberal.”

The Harris campaign responded that the former president was running on “his trademark lies”.

It comes as little surprise that the Trump campaign took its first big swing at Ms Harris as the “failed border czar”, blaming her for the high numbers of undocumented immigrants at the US southern border.

Americans have consistently said in polls this year that immigration is a top problem facing their country, and it will weigh on many of their minds when they cast ballots for the next US president in November.

Since that first ad, Trump and his running mate JD Vance have repeatedly labelled Ms Harris the “failed border czar”, and tied her to relentless images of people wading across the Rio Grande or squeezing under razor wire into the US.

Her critics say she should have found a way to address the issue over the past four years.

But “border czar” is a contested term. Allies and former officials who worked with the vice-president say she was not given responsibility for policing the border.

“It was never that position,” said Ricardo Zuniga, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State of Western Hemisphere Affairs.

“She knew from the beginning, as did the entire US government, that it was about tackling migration at its source.”