Pictured is Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman and first Black vice president of America: Clevelandurbannews.com and-Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor in chief

WASHINGTON, D.C.-Vice President Kamala Harris, America's first woman and first Black vice president, will visit the Mexico-U.S. border this week, her first trip to that particular border and one that follows criticism that the vice president was avoiding such a trip even after returning earlier this month from her first foreign trip as vice president, a three-day visit to Guatemala and Mexico.

The Mexico–United States border is an international border separating Mexico and the U.S. that extends from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Gulf of Mexico in the east.

Harris, 56 and a Democrat, had said that she would visit the border in due time and that there is no quick fix to the influx of Central American migrants to the U.S.

A former California attorney general and U.S. senator, she said there’s a reason people are arriving at our border and that it is prudent in the least to "ask what is that reason and then identify the problem so we can fix it.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said during a press briefing during the height of the controversy that the vice president was doing what President Joe Biden assigned her to do relative to the immigration controversy, and that Harris was  focused on foreign policy in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvado.

But those critical of the situation, mainly Republicans, wanted more answers as pressure mounted for the Biden administration to do more on the U.S.-Mexico border fiasco.

The president has since changed his tone and will send Harris to the border this week, a decision that follows criticism also by Guatemala President Alejandro Giammattei, who said,  after meeting with Harris earlier this month, that the Biden administration and Democrats in general are responsible for the border crisis in his country as it relates to the U.S .

The controversy over the initial reluctance of President Biden to visit the Mexico-U.S. border or to send Harris in his place has racial overtones, critics say, at least where Harris is concerned, and it comes as Congressional Republicans cry that the Biden administration is soft on immigration and responsible for an influx of migrants along the southern border.

U.S. border agents reportedly detained some 100,000 migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in February alone, with nearly a 70 percent increase in that amount in April,  U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows, the highest monthly total since a major border surge in mid-2019.

The numbers just keep getting worse, data show, the worst figures in some 20 years.

Immigration advocates say it is partly because America provides a more viable alternative to their poverty and crime ridden homelands, even with its substandard and often illegal wages.

Foes warn that the crisis of illegal border crossing heightens crime in the U.S.

U.S. immigration policy has suddenly become a testing ground on how the vice president handles foreign policy matters amid increased scrutiny from some mainstream media pundits and from policy makers both inside and out of her political party.

Republicans say the Biden administration has watered down immigration policies in place under the former president Donald  Trump's administration while Democrats argue that Trump's immigration policies were racist and anti-Democratic, and that they marginalized women, children, and people of color.

Harris ran for president last year, and later vice president on the Democratic ticket.

She is the first woman of color to compete on a major party presidential ticket in America.

On the campaign trail for her unsuccessful bid for president she had a tone amenable to the nation's immigrant community as she pushed immigration reform policies.

Biden later tapped her to run for vice president on his presidential ticket.