Media outlets backtrack on ‘border czar’ title after Harris assumes Biden’s mantle

Vice President Kamala Harris’ s role in overseeing U.S. relations with Central America in 2021 quickly earned her the label of “border czar,” with Republicans and news outlets referring to her as such, but now media outlets such as CNN, ABC News, and MSNBC are backpedaling.

The Media Research Center compiled a video of clips that include ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl saying Harris was “not the border czar. That’s what Republicans labeled her.”

That clip was followed by another on the third day of the Republican National Convention showing an ABC News correspondent saying that Republicans were “very critical” of Harris “especially in her role as border czar.”

The messaging about Harris's title and responsibilities changed as soon as she unofficially became the party's standard bearer when President Joe Biden bowed out of the race last weekend. Weeks of intense scrutiny of the president shifted to painting Harris in a more favorable light, including revamping her image and record regarding her record on the border, arguably her highest-profile job.

Officially, Harris, like Biden when he was vice president, was tasked with managing diplomatic relations with Central America in March 2021, but it came at a time when migrant border crossings surged, creating a humanitarian crisis. Many of those migrants crossing the border were coming from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, not Mexico.

“The vice president has agreed, among the multiple other things that I have her leading, and I appreciate it, agreed to lead our diplomatic effort to work with those nations to accept returnees and enhance migration enforcement at their borders,” Biden said on March 24, 2021.

It was not until three months later that Harris visited both Guatemala and Mexico, making her address telling migrants not to come to the United States. Since then, more than 8 million illegal immigrants have made their way into the U.S.

Republicans and even leading media outlet correspondents, including NBC News's Lester Holt, questioned Harris when she had planned to visit the border. At the end of June, Harris made her way to the border city of El Paso, Texas, and many criticized her for not picking a city with more traffic.

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“Harris continues to lead the effort to address the root causes of migration," a White House official told Axios in a statement . She is praised for generating more than $5.2 billion in investments in Central America.

Border crossings have reached the lowest levels in the Biden administration in the past few weeks, following Biden’s executive order that limits the number of asylum-seekers allowed in based on a quota.