Kamala Harris Met by Protestors During First Trip to the Southern Border

Vice President Kamala Harris was met by protesters in El Paso, Texas, upon arriving for her first trip to the southern border since President Biden tapped her to address the "root causes" of the ongoing crisis.

Upon her arrival, however, the vice president was not met with open arms.

Instead, the vice president was met with protesters waving flags and holding signs supporting former President Trump as well as blasting "Que Mala" — a Spanish phrase meaning "how mean" — for making a "wrong turn" and informing the vice president that El Paso "isn't Europe."

Other signs asked Harris how many "little girls need to be raped" before the administration declares the border crisis a "crisis" and if the vice president could "hear their screams." Another sign said the "spirit of America starts at the border."

"Kamala, you came a little too late. We have had this crisis for years," Republican congressional candidate Irene Armendariz-Jackson said in an El American video report. "We need solutions, we don't need you parading around the border patrol station or acting like you care."

The White House abruptly announced the trip earlier this week following Harris' trip to Mexico and Guatemala, where she defended her decision to not yet visit the border in an interview with NBC, drawing a fresh wave of attacks from Republicans. It would have been a "grand gesture," she said, arguing that she had not yet been to Europe, either.

The White House has sought to downplay the politics of the trip, presenting it as a continuation of the vice president's work on addressing the root causes of migration in Central America.

"We are here today to address and talk about what has brought people to the U.S. border and again to continue to talk about the root causes," Harris told reporters as she landed in El Paso. "It was always the plan to come here, and I think we’re going to have a good and productive day."

In a call with reporters ahead of the trip, Symone Sanders, Harris' chief spokesperson, said that the visit was "really about building on the work that she has been doing. This is not happening in a vacuum and it is not just to go and see."

President Joe Biden announced in March that he was tasking Harris with leading diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration from Central America amid a rising number of people — many of them unaccompanied children — arriving at the U.S. southern border seeking asylum.

The assignment thrust Harris into the center of a divisive issue that has vexed lawmakers for decades, and the potential for political fallout sent aides close to her scrambling to clarify that the vice president was not directly responsible for the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Harris' office announced her visit to the border shortly after former President Donald Trump said he would visit the southern border next week with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and a group of House Republican lawmakers. The White House shrugged off suggestions that Friday's trip was politically motivated.

"This administration does not take their cues from Republican criticism, nor from the former president of the United States of America," Sanders said.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki also said that the administration decided now was an "appropriate time for her to go to the border" due to the "great deal of progress" that has been made on the conditions in the region, particularly on the housing of migrant children. The White House had said earlier that a vice presidential visit could be disruptive to the administration's efforts.

Still, Republican criticism continued even after Harris announced she would visit the border, with many chiding her decision to go to El Paso rather than other parts of the state like the Rio Grande Valley, which see significantly more border crossings.

"Harris is ignoring the real problem areas along our southern border that are not protected by the border wall and are being overrun by the federal government’s ill-thought-out open-border policies," said Abbott, a Republican.