More than 16,000 unaccompanied migrant children are still in shelters – double the amount in March

More than 16,200 children are still in custody of Health and Human Services, which is 50 per cent higher than the levels in March, the agency reported Tuesday.

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra appeared before the Ways and Means Committee to face questions on the border crisis.

President Joe Biden has promised to reunite families separated during the Trump administration and to expedite processing unaccompanied minors who arrived at the border in the last few months.

However, a new report from Biden’s task force on reuniting families indicates that 2,127 children have ‘not yet been reunified’ with their parents.

The poor showing in progress at the border comes on the heels of Vice President Kamala Harris trip to Guatemala and Mexico – where she faced backlash for laughing her way through serious topics and handing out cookies on the Air Force Two flight with her face-less likeness printed on them.

The task force progress report submitted to the president last week shows only seven children have successfully been reunited since Biden took office.

In a 22-page task force progress report, which was released Tuesday during Harris’ trip, was submitted to President Joe Biden last week and shows that 2,127 children are still awaiting their reunions.

It also states, however, that 29 more families ‘will be reunited in the coming weeks.’ The provision will allow the families to enter the U.S. under humanitarian parole, which lasts 36 months and can be renewed.

The dismal showings in reunification is being blamed on the Trump administration’s failure to keep accurate and organized data on families and children when they were separated at the border.

‘No comprehensive interagency system was in place to separate parents and their migrant children,’ a senior Department of Homeland Security official said in a call with reporters.

Becerra was summoned to testify about Biden’s budget proposal, which includes a request to Congress to boost spending on care for unaccompanied migrant children to $3.3 billion.

Harris’ trip south of the border Monday and Tuesday was focused on addressing ‘root causes’ of migration and the vice president still refused to visit the border, dismissing questions surrounding the crisis.

Even the Biden administration appears to be baffled, however, by Harris’ trip to address the border crisis and her icy treatment of reporters who questioned why she hasn’t been to the U.S.-Mexico border.

White House insiders were ‘perplexed’ by her answers to her questions over whether she would visit the Rio Grande and ‘hoped her first foreign trip would be a success’, CNN reported. 

White House also fear that any progress she made during her meetings with the Guatemalan and Mexican presidents may be undone by her mixed messages and terse encounters with reporters. 

Harris’ trip was meant to focus on the ‘root causes’ of migration that have led to families and unaccompanied children heading north to the border. 

But she made a series of seemingly conflicting statements about her decision not to visit the border and enraged progressives by telling migrants: ‘Do not come’.

By the end of her trip, at a press conference in Mexico City with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Harris insisted the trip was a success.  

‘Listen, I’ve been to the border before and I’ll go again,’ she said.

She also hinted that a border trip would be ‘short-sighted’, but did promise to visit without giving a date. 

CNN reported that officials were concerned within the administration that whatever progress Harris had made on the leader-to-leader level might have been undermined by her conflicting answers and PR missteps.

‘It’s left some of the administration officials perplexed, and the vice president’s team frustrated,’ the network Wednesday. 

‘There was hope the trip would be a success, and in the end, they feel it may have been overshadowed by some of her answers to these questions,’ the network reported.

She also snapped at reporters a few times when questioned about a border visit. Among those asking about it was a CNN correspondent. Fox News correspondents have been hounding the White House on the topic for weeks, so it was unlikely to have surprised her team.

At the same news conference where she said she would go to the border, Harris also shrugged off the idea. 

‘I think it’s short-sighted, for any of us who are in the business of problem solving to suggest we’re only going to respond to the reaction as opposed to addressing the cause,’ she said.

It echoed her earlier comments in Guatemala, where she characterized such a visit as being for show.

‘I came here to be here on the ground, to speak with the leader of this nation around what we can do in a way that is significant, is tangible and has real results,’ she said.

‘And I will continue to be focused on that kind of work as opposed to grand gestures.’

There is an element of showmanship in any foreign trip – and Harris was not shy about calling her own first foreign foray a victory.

‘Do I declare this trip a success? Yes I do,’ she said.

She also took heat on the trip when she shot back at NBC anchor Lester Holt when he asked her about visiting the border.  

‘At some point, you know, we are going to the border,’ she said. ‘We’ve been to the border. So this whole thing about the border. We’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border,’ she repeated.

‘You haven’t been to the border,’ Holt pushed back.

‘And I haven’t been to Europe,’ Harris snapped, then quickly turned it into her signature laugh.

‘And I mean, I don’t understand the point that you’re making,’ she said to Holt ‘I’m not discounting the importance of the border.’ 

She also kicked off her trip with a blunt message to migrants: ‘Do not come,’ an admonition that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York called ‘disappointing.’ 

In another odd moment, a case of mistaken identity at Harris’ press conference in Mexico City on Tuesday allowed a woman wrongly identified as a Univision reporter with a similar name to ask the vice president a fawning question.

The woman, introduced by Harris’ press secretary Symone Sanders as ‘Maria Fernanda from Univision’, was one of only five people called on for questions at the Mexico City event. 

She asked a soft question, which Harris called ‘great.’ Late on Tuesday, Fox News revealed that the woman was in fact a San Francisco Bay-area entrepreneur named Maria Fernanda Reyes.  Univision put out a statement saying the woman was not their reporter. 

‘I never imagined this level of narcissism’: Kamala Harris is slammed for passing out cut out cookies of herself on Airforce 2 during border crisis tour

Kamala Harris has come under fire for handing out cookies with her likeness during her first foreign tour of Central American countries ravaged by the border crisis.  

The vice president gifted the treats – which featured a bust of her drawn in frosting without the details of her face – to reporters aboard Air Force 2 on Sunday as she set off for Guatemala.   

USA Today reporter Courtney Subramanian shared a photo of one of the cookies on Twitter – sparking an onslaught of criticism from conservatives.  

‘I never even imagined this level of narcissism,’ Republican congressional candidate Buzz Patterson tweeted.  

Commentator Matt Walsh chimed in: ”Here you go, everyone. I thought you might like to eat my face.’ What a weirdo. Extremely disturbing behavior.’ 

Another set of cookies is reported to have featured Air Force 2, according to a tweet posted Sunday night by Subramanian. 

Many critics wondered why the vice president would give out cookies of her own likeness while she faces backlash for avoiding the US-Mexico border, a visit she said would be akin to nothing but a ‘grand gesture.’ 

The former presidential hopeful visited Guatemala on Monday to try to address the ‘root causes’ of illegal immigration.

‘Handing out cookies with her face on them as the border crisis rages… The modern-day equivalent of ‘let them eat cake,” said GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.

‘I thought someone gave Kamala cookies that look like her. That would’ve been a cute gift,’ wrote Canadian Youtuber Lauren Chen. ‘Instead, she gave cookies that look like her to other people. That’s a narcissistic AF and a totally weird gift.’