The House hammers Harris on the border in its final summer act
On its way out the chamber for a six-week break, Republicans and a half-dozen frontline Democrats condemned the vice president for the Biden administration’s handling of the southern border.

The House passed a non-binding resolution this morning condemning Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration for their handling of the southern border.
Six vulnerable Democrats—Reps. Yadira Caraveo (Colo.), Henry Cuellar (Texas), Don Davis (N.C.), Jared Golden(Maine), Mary Peltola (Alaska) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.)—joined all voting Republicans in a symbolic rebuke of Harris’s role as “border czar,” a position opponents of the measure say the vice president was never appointed to.
The final tally was 220–196.
The resolution, introduced by House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), illustrates the House GOP’s rapid shift to blaming Harris for the challenges at the southern border now that Joe Biden is no longer running for reelection and she has secured enough delegates to become the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
House GOP leadership pulled three of the four 2025 funding bills it prepared for floor action this week—a setback that further spoiled Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)’s ambitious plan to pass Republican versions of all 12 funding bills before the August recess. Johnson waived the white flag and sent members home a week early after the vote until early September, with just five of the bills approved.
“We have a single legislative item that is on the floor today,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told me this morning ahead of the vote. “Is it designed to address inflation? No. Is it designed to lower housing costs? No. Is it designed to help address challenges at the border? No. What is it? It's a fake and fraudulent resolution cooked up—I think by one of the representatives from New York who continues to embarrass herself regularly—that lies about the vice president.”
Spokespeople for Stefanik did not respond to a request for comment from Once Upon a Hill.
House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) told me this week that the Republicans’ ability to pass most party-line messaging bills like the Harris resolution while failing at the brass tacks of governing over must-pass legislation is proof that the House GOP has no agenda that helps the American people.
“The chaos and confusion that has been the hallmark of this Congress is because of House Republicans. And so this is just a continuation of those efforts,” Aguilar said. “They are clearly just failing and trying to do anything they can to inject themselves into presidential politics and to carry water for the former president.”
House Republicans blasted Harris for visiting the border only once since March 2021. They said the vice president now owned the administration’s record on unlawful border crossings, which they say has enabled the worst border crisis in American history.
But Democrats fiercely pushed back against the “border czar” branding.
“She was never assigned the position of border czar. They’re making that up because extreme MAGA Republicans are in full meltdown. They’re reeling, they don't know what to do and they lack an affirmative agenda.”
Aguilar also called out House Republicans for misrepresenting Harris’s role in advancing President Biden’s immigration policy.
“Let’s be very clear that there was no there was no border czar. Kamala Harris’s role was to engage in multilateral discussions with our Latin American countries,” he said. “We are in a much better position than we have in the past. Kamala Harris has been a leader of this administration in so many ways. And efforts by House Republicans to carry the water of Donald Trump are just laughable and unserious.”
House Republicans claim HR 2—the border bill they passed last summer—would solve all the issues down south. But as I’ve previously reported, the Secure the Border Act didn’t receive unanimous Republican support in the face of unanimous Democratic opposition. The Democratic-controlled Senate is uninterested in HR 2, and President Biden has already said he would veto it even if it somehow reached his desk.
Democrats are especially unreceptive to GOP border critiques because they were willing to accept the strict restrictions in a Senate-negotiated deal several months ago that former President Donald Trump tanked so Biden wouldn’t score a political win. The compromise would have added 1,500 Customs and Border Protection agents and officers, 1,200 immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel and 4,300 asylum officers. It would also upgrade the technology to catch fentanyl and stiffen the asylum system. Biden ultimately signed an executive order with some of the border deal provisions because he said he could no longer wait for Republicans to get their act together.
The Department of Homeland Security announced this morning that the number of encounters at the southwest border has plummeted 55 percent in the seven weeks since Biden signed the order.
“As far as I’m concerned, if you’re not willing to spend the money to hire more Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, more judges, more high-tech machinery, you’re just not serious about protecting our border,” President Biden said last month when he signed the border executive order. “It’s as simple as that.”