Seizing on a Biden administration report issued Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lost track of tens of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children, House Republicans tore into border czar Kamala Harris over the "humanitarian catastrophe" and said she "cannot be trusted to fix it."
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and other GOP leaders quickly responded to Tuesday's report by the internal watchdog for the Department of Homeland Security that said in the past five years, more than 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children failed to report for their immigration court hearing and that ICE was "not able to account" for their whereabouts.
"The southern border is a national security disaster and a humanitarian catastrophe, and Kamala Harris cannot be trusted to fix it," Johnson said on a press call, The Hill reported. "It is on her watch that all this has happened."
Johnson, joined on the call by House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green, R-Tenn., and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, placed blame at the door of Harris, the Democrat nominee for president and border czar in President Joe Biden's administration.
Republicans were not thrilled with speeches made by Democrats about the border, including Biden, on Day 1 of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In his keynote speech that bled into Tuesday morning, Biden dared to go on the offensive about border policy, one that has seen more than 10 million illegals enter the country on his watch.
"Their speeches are full of fantasy and not facts," Johnson said, according to The Hill. "This is the largest gaslighting operation in the history of American politics."