• From about 1:45 p.m. ET on July 21, when President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, through July 24, Fox News and Newsmax guests and personalities made at least 129 claims calling Vice President Kamala Harris the administration's “border czar” or positively affirming the misconception that she led the administration's border policy.
• Newsmax host Bianca de la Garza led the charge, pushing the misconception at least 9 times, with fellow Newsmax host Chris Salcedo (7 claims), Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham (6) and Sean Hannity (5), and Trump senior campaign adviser and Newsmax contributor Jason Miller (5) following closely behind.
• Newsmax shows accounted for 69 claims with guests and personalities on Newsline pushing the misconception at least 16 times, the most of any show on both networks.
• Fox News shows accounted for 60 claims, with The Ingraham Angle guests and personalities making the most claims on Fox at 12. 
• Fox News’ ostensibly “news-side” shows accounted for 35% of the network's total “border czar” claims, led by America Reports with 11.

• Right-wing media, including Fox News and Newsmax, have been spreading false claims that Harris was the administration's “border czar.” A piece by Breitbart claimed that “after being named Border Czar for the Biden administration, Vice President Harris stood by and watched as more than 11 million migrants illegally entered the United States illegally.” Right-wing figures like Paul Ingrassia and Bill Mitchell have also referred to Harris as a “border czar.” [Media Matters, 7/22/24]
• On Fox & Friends, former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson pushed back on co-host Steve Doocy saying that Harris’ “record as a border czar was going to come into glare, into focus a lot.” Johnson reminded Doocy that “border czar is a title that Republicans gave her” and “she is not the border czar.” Johnson also said that “to the extent there is anybody who is a border czar, it's the secretary of homeland security.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/23/24]
• Fox News contributor Richard Fowler pushed back on the narrative, saying that Harris “was not the border czar” and that it was Republicans who “labeled” her as such. Fowler also described her actual role as leading “the diplomatic effort in the northern triangle countries to work on the root causes to why people are migrating to the southern border or crossing the border.” [Fox News, America Reports, 7/23/24] 
• Newsmax has acknowledged that the “border czar” claim has been debunked. For instance, Newsmax host Bianca de la Garza said that “they are trying to say Harris wasn't the border czar,” specifically naming Axios' reporting. De la Garza still claimed, however, that Harris “has a record on the border” and that there “are serious concerns about the border.” [Newsmax, Newsline, 7/24/24, 7/24/24]

• CBS News: “Harris was not asked to be the administration's ‘border czar’ or to oversee immigration policy and enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border.” CBS explained, “That has mainly been the responsibility of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and his department, which oversees the country's main three immigration agencies, including Customs and Border Protection.” [CBS News, 7/22/24]
• In 2021, Biden tapped Harris to lead the White House’s efforts to address migration along the U.S.-Mexico border. In this role, Harris was charged with addressing the supposed “root causes” of migration by improving economic and social conditions in several Central American countries and encouraging stronger enforcement along those countries' own borders. Harris has described her own job as “engaging in diplomacy with government, with the private sector, with civil society and the leaders of each in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to strengthen democracy and the rule of law and ensure shared prosperity in the region.” [The Associated Press, 3/24/21; The White House, 5/27/21; NBC News, 7/25/24]
• Axios noted that the 2021 announcement led to “Republicans and some news outlets, including Axios, giving Harris the unofficial monicker of ‘border czar.’” The outlet further reported, “The ‘border czar’ narrative stuck, especially in conservative circles, and calls mounted in spring 2021 for Harris to visit the border.” More recently, House Republicans passed a resolution on July 25 pinpointing Harris as the “border czar” responsible for a “border crisis,” after days of right-wing media coverage from Fox, Newsmax, and others focused on the vice president’s role following Biden’s withdrawal. [Axios, 7/24/24; The Hill, 7/25/24]

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream database for all original programming on Fox News Channel and Newsmax for any of the terms “Vice President,” “Kamala,” “Harris,” or “border” within close proximity to the term “root” or the term “czar” (or any misspellings) from 1:45 p.m. ET on July 21, 2024, when Joe Biden dropped out of the race, through July 24, 2024.

We included claims, which we defined as instances of uninterrupted blocks of speech from a single speaker that called Vice President Kamala Harris the “border czar” or positively affirmed the misconception that she led the administration's border policy. For host monologues, headlines, and correspondent reports, we defined a claim as the speech between read quotes and played clips. We did not consider the speech within read quotes or played clips unless a speaker in the segment positively affirmed said speech either directly before or after the quote was read or the clip was played.

We did not include claims saying that Harris was not the “border czar” or claims that merely stated she had a role in immigration policy.