CLAIM: Vice President Kamala Harris claimed that former President Donald Trump “did nothing to fix” the broken immigration system in the United States.
VERDICT: False.
During a speech in Douglas, Arizona, Harris spoke about how “politicians have refused to come together to fix” the immigration system in the nation. Harris continued on to criticize Trump for not solving “the shortage of immigration judges” or the “shortage of border agents.”
“In the four years that Donald Trump was president, he did nothing to fix our broken immigration system,” Harris said. “He did not solve the shortage of immigration judges. He did not solve the shortage of border agents. He did not create lawful pathways into our nation. He did nothing to address an outdated asylum system and did not work with other governments in our hemisphere to deal with what clearly is also a regional challenge.”
While serving as president, the Trump administration cut off foreign aid to Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala over a failure to stop migrant caravans from making their way to the U.S.
As Breitbart News previously reported, the Trump administration also ended the temporary protected status for roughly 200,000 El Salvadoran migrants.
The Trump administration also constructed more than 400 miles of a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
In September 2019, the Trump administration also announced that they would be ending catch-and-release for migrant families.
As Breitbart News previously reported, the ending of catch-and-release was a “huge win for Americans” because it meant border patrol agents were given a “legal alternative to the catch-and-release rules which allow migrants to legally enter” the country with their children, and by claiming asylum, be released into the country.
Trump also previously vowed “to hire 15,000 new border agents and immigration officers.” However, the Trump administration still ended up with thousands of vacancies, according to the Los Angeles Times.
In a sign of the difficulties, Customs and Border Protection allocated $60.7 million to Accenture Federal Services, a management consulting firm, as part of a $297-million contract to recruit, vet and hire 7,500 border officers over fire years, but the company has produced only 33 new hires so far.
The issue of a lack of border patrol agents being hired is described as being an issue that “predates the Trump administration,” with there being a reported 21,444 border patrol agents hired in 2011. However, since then, this number has decreased, according to Politico.
In a 2023 list of the best places to work in the U.S. federal government, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency ranked among the bottom agencies.