More than 180,000 people visited the U.S. border with Mexico in May. “Border czar” Kamala Harris wasn’t one of them.

President-in-Waiting Harris became Joe Biden’s “border czar” in March. Since then, the border crisis has only gotten worse as we’ve all waited for Harris to actually visit the border. She’s laughed off the idea on more than one occasion, including this week just before her trip to Guatemala and Mexico. It’s certainly not a laughing matter.

A record high 180,034 people were apprehended by federal law enforcement last month trying to cross the U.S. border, and that’s after April and March saw 178,622 and 172,331, respectively. Since the Department of Homeland Security was established in 2002, no single month has seen the border traffic May did. Last month’s number represents and eye-popping 674% increase year over year, and are far higher than the 30,000-50,000 monthly average over the last decade.

Too bad these statistics weren’t released during Harris’s trip.

Not all of these migrants are being turned away, either. “More than 38,000 children who migrated to the United States from countries south of Mexico and came across the southern border without a parent have been released throughout the country since President Joe Biden took office,” reports the Washington Examiner. “The figure represents the highest number of migrant children to be discharged from government custody at any point in U.S. history.”

Those children often become the connections that bring in adults later.

It’s not that Harris showing up at the border would suddenly fix anything, but it would convey at least a modicum of seriousness about the situation instead of laughing, shrugging, yammering about “root causes” of migration, and essentially asking What crisis?

As Mark Alexander put it, “So ‘Border Czar’ Kamala Harris, claims the ‘root causes’ of the southern border surge include ‘extreme weather conditions and the lack of climate adaptation; as well as … violence against women, Indigenous people, LGBTQ people, and Afro-descendants.’ Actually, the ‘root cause’ is the Biden/Harris open border invitation.”

Sure, she went to Central America and said to potential migrants, “Do not come.” But the clear and unmistakable message of Joe Biden’s administration is that Donald Trump’s efforts at border security were cruel and racist, and the new sheriff in town isn’t going to behave that way. What potential migrants are actually hearing is if you come, you can stay.

Don’t take our word for it. Take Joe Biden’s.

In 2019, he said, “I would in fact make sure that there is, that we immediately surge to the border — all those people are seeking asylum. They deserve to be heard. That’s who we are. We’re a nation that says, ‘If you want to flee and you’re fleeing oppression, you should come.’” The coyotes making $200,000 to smuggle migrants certainly got the message.

“The truth is, the border crisis could be fixed overnight,” says political analyst John Daniel Davidson. “All the Biden administration has to do is stop letting people into the country. Turn them back at the border, and tell them they’ll have to wait in Mexico for the outcome of their asylum hearing. It won’t take long for word to get back to the sending communities that the trip isn’t worth it.”

In other words, go back to Donald Trump’s border policies.