Vice-President Kamala Harris to make first trip to border

US Vice-President Kamala Harris will on Friday make her first trip to the US southern border since taking office.

She has faced questions about why she has not visited the border since the White House assigned her in March to address the “root causes” of migration.

The visit was announced a week after former President Donald Trump said he would go to the border on 30 June.

The number of undocumented migrants reaching the US-Mexico border is at the highest level in more than 20 years.

A BBC investigation of a detention centre for migrant children in El Paso, Texas, has found reports of sexual abuse, Covid and lice outbreaks, hungry children being served undercooked meat and sandstorms ripping through the desert tent camps where the minors are being held.

Ms Harris will travel to El Paso, Texas, with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, according to White House officials.

When asked on Wednesday whether Ms Harris was bowing to political pressure, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the vice-president was going because the administration had determined now is the “appropriate time for her to go to the border”.

Mr Trump and other Republicans took credit.

In a statement Mr Trump said: “After months of ignoring the crisis at the Southern Border, it is great that we got Kamala Harris to finally go and see the tremendous destruction and death that they’ve created – a direct result of Biden ending my very tough but fair Border policies.

“Harris and Biden were given the strongest Border in American history.

“And now, it is by far the worst in American history. If [Texas] Governor Abbott and I weren’t going there next week, she would have never gone!”

Earlier this month, Ms Harris made her first trip abroad as vice-president – travelling to Mexico and Guatemala for talks about the humanitarian crisis. The presidents of both countries have blamed the Biden administration’s policies for causing the record surge in undocumented migration.

Ms Harris has rejected criticism over why she has not gone to the border until now by arguing she is more focused on tackling the conditions in Central America that have spurred hundreds of thousands of migrants to trek to the border this year.

During her recent trip abroad, the vice-president became testy when asked by various media about not visiting the border, at one point rolling her eyes at a journalist.

While in Guatemala, she told migrants: “Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border.” Critics across the political spectrum said her remarks had contradicted the Biden administration’s promise to usher in a more humane approach on migration.

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said it caught 180,034 migrants in May, the biggest monthly total since April 2000, and up slightly from the previous two months.