With former president Donald Trump visiting the area less than a week after Harris, Republicans will be watching the vice president’s visit closely for fodder they can use in political attacks.President Joe Biden on Tuesday formally declared June as Pride Month and reiterated his pledge to defend the rights of the LGBTQ+ community in the US. Republicans have seized on the absence of both Harris and President Biden from the border to paint the administration as indifferent to border security, seeking to revive a potent political weapon against Democrats for the 2022 midterm elections. “It was always the plan to come here, and I think we’re gonna have a good productive day,” Harris said after arriving into El Paso.
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The vice president has faced increasing criticism from members of both parties for deferring the trip until now and for her muddied explanations as to why. And our approach has to be thoughtful and effective,” she continued. “We’re talking about children, we’re talking about families, we’re talking about suffering. Meeting with migrant children reminded her that “this issue cannot be reduced to a political issue,” Harris said. “The stories that I heard today reinforce the nature of those root causes,” she said, adding, “It is going to require, as we have been doing, a comprehensive approach that acknowledges each piece of this.’' Harris has devoted much of her time in her new role to addressing what she calls the “root causes” of migration, namely poverty, crime, and corruption in Central America. She met with five young girls, ages 9-16, who had been held at a Customs and Border Protection processing center after crossing the border, the White House said, before visiting the border itself at the Paso del Norte Port of Entry. Stern is currently executive director of OutRight Action International, which defends human rights and works to prevent abuses of LGBTQ people. Her responsibilities will involve ensuring that US diplomacy and foreign assistance promote and protect LGBTQ rights around the world. You know, being able to love yourself, love whomever you love.”īiden is naming Jessica Stern as a special diplomatic envoy at the State Department for LGBTQ rights. … And above all, Pride Month stands for love. It stands for courage, the courage of all those in previous generations. “For this community, for our nation, for the world, Pride Month represents so much.
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“Pride is back at the White House,” Biden said to applause. The LGBTQ community repeatedly criticized Trump for not acknowledging the community during June, the annual anniversary of the birth of the modern LGBTQ rights movement. In addition to speaking out on the importance of expanding protections for gay and trans people, Biden was marking a sharp pivot from Donald Trump’s presidency. The president has been championing the Equality Act, a bill passed in the House that would widely ban discrimination against LGBTQ people, since his earliest days in the White House.