By any standard you wish to apply, a humanitarian crisis is underway on the US border with Mexico. People are dying. Detainees are being held in horrendous conditions. The unwillingness of the Biden bunch to even pretend to care about the crisis, the deaths of illegals, or the economic and social harm being done by the tsunami of migrants overwhelming the nation’s ability to control its own borders is having the effect of attracting still more people into trying to cross the border illegally. The latest big-brain idea, paying Central Americans to stay in their home countries, will have the utterly predictable effect of providing still more would-be illegals with the financial resources to hire a coyote [the human trafficker, not the canine] to shepherd them to the US border.

Back in March, Biden assigned Kamala Harris to lead the efforts of federal agencies to manage or at least reduce the mismanagement of the border crisis.

President Joe Biden has tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the White House effort to tackle the migration challenge at the U.S. southern border and work with Central American nations to address root causes of the problem.

Biden made the announcement as he and Harris met at the White House on Wednesday with Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandra Mayorkas and other immigration advisers to discuss the increase in migrants, including many unaccompanied minors, arriving at the border in recent weeks.

In delegating the matter to Harris, Biden is seeking to replicate a dynamic that played out when he served as President Barack Obama’s vice president. Obama turned to Biden in his first term to lead the White House effort to draw down U.S. troops in Iraq and oversee implementation of stimulus in response to the Great Recession.

“When she speaks, she speaks for me,” Biden said, noting her past work as California’s attorney general makes her specially equipped to lead the administration’s response.

Biden, who has faced stiff criticism from Republicans over the increased flow of migrants, is hoping to show Americans he’s taking the situation at the border seriously. He also wants to prevent the growing humanitarian and political challenge from overshadowing his administration’s ambitious legislative agenda.

Even at the time, I was left sort of puzzled as to why Harris would go along with this.

Earlier in life, as a young infantry officer, I learned to avoid no-win jobs; jobs where your best, your optimum outcome was that no one knew you were there. If the vehicles run, if the ammo and fuel are available, if transportation and food arrive on schedule, then no one cares. If any of those events fail to happen, then everyone knows your name and the name of your boss.

Responsibility for the border struck me as just such a no-win proposition. Harris would not be able to stem the flow of immigrants because the hate-America coalition that connived to place Biden in the White House does not want the border to be under control. They are using the horrendous conditions as a way of dismantling the infrastructure built by President Trump and go to a version of catch-and-release that is even more expansive than it was under Obama. Transporting illegals into the interior of the United States before releasing them has the dual effect of reducing their visibility on the border and punishing targeted communities. We have no way of knowing what kinds of consent decrees are being entered into by Biden’s Justice Department that will make the job of any future president who is even vaguely concerned about national sovereignty much, much more difficult. Harris obviously sees herself as Biden’s successor, so why would she agree to take on a problem that no one in Biden’s junta, including Kamala Harris, wishes actually to fix?

One also had to wonder at the decision process that led to Biden assigning Harris a task, something he clearly cannot do. She is an elected Constitutional officer who does not work for Biden and can’t be made to take direction from him. Did Biden really think he was doing her a favor by giving her a high-profile job? Does he really believe the bullsh** in the AP story quoted above that his performance during the 2007 financial crisis propelled him into the White House? Or did someone decide it would be fun to give Harris a job that she couldn’t turn down but which would guarantee failure and curtail her presidential ambitions?

One clue that Harris was not wildly excited about her new job was that she has yet to visit the border. Her refusal to visit had been subjecting her to criticism. This, for instance, is from Florida Senator Rick Scott last Monday:

Flying over the border at 35,000 feet doesn’t count as a visit. Now, 123 days since taking office, it’s shocking to see the lengths to which President Biden and Vice President Harris will go to avoid seeing the border crisis for themselves. Apprehensions at the border rose above 178,000 in April alone, nearly 6,000 a day. This is about the safety of American families. We must secure the border now,

It isn’t just Republicans; Democrats are also wondering why she has been AWOL.

Now Harris has decided that she’s just not going to do it. Here is Natasha Bertrand pitching Harris’s reasoning on CNN. If Bertrand’s name sounds familiar, during the Russia Hoax, she became known as “Fusion Natasha” because she was the go-to reporter for whatever conspiracy theory Fusion GPS was selling that particular day.

A comment there: ‘This feels like someone running cover for the VP. I incorrectly assumed this was a VP staffer for the first 60 seconds or so before I saw the chyron read “White House reporter”’ https://t.co/TXaQbPod8q

— Charles X Proxy™ (@Charlemagne0814) June 1, 2021

This is from Bertrand’s CNN website post:

Harris, thought to be a leading Democratic candidate for the 2024 presidential race should Biden not run for reelection, has not shied away from the tough assignment and is engaged and dedicated to her new role, sources told CNN. But she and her staff appeared wary of becoming a scapegoat for Republicans for any and all problems at the southern border — a not-unfounded concern, especially after GOP lawmakers photoshopped her face onto a milk carton and accused her of being “missing” at the border.

The fraught politics is why, immediately after the President announced Harris’ new role, Harris’ aides seemed dismayed when they saw some Republicans and media outlets try to characterize her as the new border czar, said one of the White House officials familiar with the matter. Another White House official said Harris has been focused on the assignment and rejected the notion that her team was concerned about how her role was being perceived.

But following Biden’s announcement, both the President and vice president’s staff clarified repeatedly that Harris would be focused solely on diplomatic efforts to stem the current flow of migrants and develop a larger strategic partnership with Central America.

Harris has stressed that her role is to address the “root causes” of migration beginning in the Northern Triangle countries and Mexico, rather than the “symptoms” of it manifesting at the border, which are being addressed by the Homeland Security secretary. Without a diplomatic push in those countries, “we are just in a perpetual system of only dealing with the symptoms,” she said in April.

Harris’ meetings also indicate where her focus has been. Immigration advocates and regional experts who have participated in roundtables with the vice president describe Harris asking detailed questions on a variety of issues, like agricultural science and water irrigation strategies to tackle food insecurity and infrastructure needs.

Harris deciding not to become enmeshed in the border crisis is understandable. Narcissists rarely care about anyone but themselves. It is strange that Harris and her staff found it necessary to run to CNN to make it clear to everyone that no matter what the “big guy” has to say, she was not getting involved in the border crisis. Now Biden, or whatever ventriloquist is managing him this week, has to decide to appoint someone else to oversee the border…or just do nothing. As doing nothing has been the Dementia Popsicle’s stock-in-trade for half a century, I know what I’m betting on.