The Right Track: I've been to the border. Harris won't fix this.

In February, I went to Eagle Pass, Texas as a columnist at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to see the border firsthand. I wanted to see how secure the border really was. The experience was eye-opening.

Many migrants cross through the legal port of entry, but not all. I watched as several groups of people, including children, made it across the cold Rio Grande, then tried try to crawl through the concertina and razor wire fencing that Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the Texas National Guard to put up. Texas cannot enforce federal immigration laws, only border security.

Watching the flow of humanity at the border was tragic, sad and infuriating.

After the Biden-Harris administration lifted former President Donald Trump’s Remain in Mexico program in 2021 and Title 42 two years later , migrant encounters reached a record high in 2023. Migrant encounters reached nearly 250,000 in December. It has slowed since then, thanks in part to Abbott’s interventions, which include wire barriers, building 37 miles of border wall and a National Guard presence. Texas also has set up buoys in the Rio Grande – not just to deter migrants from swimming across, but to keep them from drowning.

Every time Abbott has tried to better secure Texas’ border, to deal with the havoc wreaked by the Biden-Harris administration, he’s been discouraged, chided and even sued. Last year the administration failed a lawsuit against Texas for placing buoys in the river. The case is still being decided in the courts, but for now, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the buoys can remain.

So, it’s laughable that Kamala Harris, now running for president, says she will build a border wall . As my colleague Ingrid Jacques asked of Harris in a column: “Who are you?”

Read the column: Kamala Harris steals another idea from Trump. Now she wants to build the wall – no joke.

As Biden’s border czar, Harris could have joined Texas in adding segments of the border wall any time in the past four years. She didn’t. But now that she’s running, she says she will?

Either Harris knew how to address the border crisis and didn’t, or she’s shifting positions to appear popular with voters now. Take your pick.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The Right Track: I've been to the border. Harris won't fix this.