Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., told Newsmax TV on Thursday that putting Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of border security "makes a mockery of the crisis."
President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that Harris will lead the administration's efforts to coordinate a response to the situation at the southern border with Mexico.
"I can think of nobody who is better qualified to do this" Biden said, according to CNBC. "When she speaks, she speaks for me, doesn't have to check with me."
McClintock told "The National Report" that Harris overseeing the border "is like putting Ghislaine Maxwell in charge of chaperoning high school prom,” referring to the British socialite and associate of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell has been accused of aiding Epstein commit child abuse.
"It makes a mockery of the crisis," McClintock added. "Kamala Harris is one of the most foremost advocates for open borders, and has made that very clear for many years."
McClintock told Newsmax last week that the situation on the border "is all being propelled by announcements and policies of this administration, who have essentially announced that if you can get to America, the odds are very good you will be admitted, you will not be deported and you can stay indefinitely."
The congressman said Thursday, "Listen to the interviews of the illegal immigrants crossing our border. They’re asked, 'Why are you coming now?' Because Biden's the president, and Biden said, we're welcome," McClintock said. "And he certainly has done that, in all of his deeds if not his exact words.
"[Biden] terminated the stay in Mexico policy, abandoned the border wall, he ordered a halt to all deportations, he announced that youth or anyone in the company of a youth or claiming asylum will be allowed to stay and entitled to free food, shelter, health care, transportation and legal representation. The fact is most of the world lives in poverty and amidst violence that does not give them a right to come to our country, and yet that is exactly what Biden's policies have invited them to do.”
When asked if Democrats would travel to the border, McClintock said, "can we shame them into joining us at the border? I don't know, can you shame a goat? But the fact is we are in the midst of the greatest border crisis our country's had, we're long past the point where this is a question of whether this is a crisis, the question is whether we have a border at the moment, for all practical purposes we don’t."
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