Former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar is publicly blasting the Biden administration for treating the border crisis as an afterthought, a failure he says handed Republicans a winning issue for years.
Salazar, who also served as Interior Secretary under President Obama, laid out the indictment in his new book, "Borderlands," and in a Fox News Digital interview tied to its release. The longtime Democrat and former Colorado attorney general did not hold back about his own party's failures on the southern border, or about the Biden White House's refusal to treat the migration crisis with the urgency it demanded.
His central charge: Biden's team made Mexico and the Americas a low priority from the start, lacked a plan, and never built a communications strategy to explain what it was doing. By the time the White House acted, the political damage was done.
In "Borderlands," Salazar recounts a private meeting with President Biden during a presidential visit to Mexico. He told Biden the administration needed a single official dedicated to the border, migration, Mexico, and the Americas, someone with the authority to coordinate across federal agencies and speak with one voice.
"We need someone in the White House to oversee the border, migration, Mexico, and the Americas. No one is in charge now. We need a border and migration czar."
Salazar pointed to Jeffrey Zients, Biden's former COVID-19 response coordinator, as a model for the kind of centralized authority the border crisis required. He urged Biden to appoint someone "focused exclusively on this crisis, with the authority to coordinate and direct action across agencies in Washington."
The plea, by Salazar's own account, went unheeded.
Salazar's frustration ran deep enough that he nearly quit. During Biden's visit to Mexico, meetings were held at the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City. Salazar wrote that he prepared a plan to present the following day, only to learn that he and former Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut had been excluded from the key follow-on meeting.
For the sitting U.S. ambassador to Mexico to be shut out of a major bilateral meeting in the country where he served was, by any measure, a stark signal about how the White House viewed the region. Salazar considered resigning over the slight.
That episode captures a broader pattern Salazar identifies: the Biden administration treated Latin America as a second-tier concern, even as record numbers of migrants crossed the southern border. The consequences of that neglect extended well beyond politics, reaching into the lives of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people.
Salazar does credit Biden with one concrete step. In June 2024, Biden signed an executive order that, by Salazar's account, sharply reduced border crossings. But the administration failed to communicate the policy's success before Biden exited the presidential race, a communications failure Salazar treats as nearly as damaging as the original inaction.
"I think that's what trapped the administration into this sense that they woke up too late by the time they did the right things to get control of the border."
The word "trapped" is telling. Salazar argues Democrats repeatedly fall into the same snare: they focus narrowly on domestic immigration reform and border enforcement without addressing the broader foreign-policy framework that drives migration in the first place. They ignore Mexico. They ignore the border between Mexico and Guatemala. And they pay for it at the ballot box.
Republicans, meanwhile, have understood the politics of the border for decades. Salazar acknowledged as much plainly, saying Republicans "use it as a political advantage because that's how they win elections. And they realized that way back 20-some years ago."
Salazar's sharpest line landed on the question of timing. He did not frame the Biden administration's failure as a policy disagreement or a matter of competing priorities. He framed it as a failure of basic seriousness.
"From day one, there should have been a great sense of urgency in addressing the crisis of a broken border and the migration crisis that we are seeing."
That assessment carries particular weight coming from a Democrat who served two Democratic presidents. Salazar's family has lived in the American Southwest since it was part of Mexico. He led "thousands of cops" as Colorado's attorney general. He is not a border hawk by partisan reflex, he is a lifelong Democrat who watched his own party fumble an issue that mattered to the people he represented.
And his criticism extends beyond Biden. Salazar describes a century-long pattern of U.S. administrations neglecting the Americas in foreign policy. Democrats, he argues, care about immigration reform but consistently fail to see the bigger picture, the economic and security relationships with Mexico and Central America that shape migration flows long before anyone reaches the Rio Grande.
While Biden's political presence has faded in recent months, the party's leadership vacuum has only made the border question more urgent for Democrats looking ahead.
Salazar's book proposes what he calls a "Borderlands Platform" centered on a "New American Alliance" among the United States, Mexico, and Canada. He writes supportively about renewing the USMCA, the trade agreement negotiated under President Trump that replaced NAFTA, and argues the three nations need deeper legal frameworks for security, trade, and immigration.
He has already begun shopping the idea to potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates. Salazar confirmed meeting with several Democrats viewed as contenders, including Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who endorsed the book. Salazar said he would push to make border and migration policy "at the heart of every" Democrat running for president.
Whether the party listens is another matter. Democrats have spent years treating the border as a messaging problem rather than a policy emergency, and the results speak for themselves. The question of what the Biden White House knew and when continues to surface across multiple fronts.
Salazar did not limit his commentary to Democrats. He said the Trump administration "has an opportunity" on border and trade issues but warned that tariffs and trade uncertainty with Mexico are hurting American consumers and farmers. He pointed to the rising cost of strawberries, blueberries, avocados, food, and fuel.
"I spent a lot of time on our ranch, I pumped the diesel into our [machinery], and I can tell you that across rural America, people are hurting because of what's happening with trade and we are losing a lot of our advantage here. Agriculture is in for a very hard time in the years ahead."
He also criticized what he called the administration's approach to enforcement, referencing ICE-involved shootings and arguing that heavy-handed tactics conflict with American values of due process and security. Salazar said the current administration is not moving toward the legal frameworks he believes are essential for lasting border security and immigration reform.
Asked whether he would meet with President Trump to discuss his proposals, Salazar said he didn't expect an invitation but would accept one, while adding he would not become "political fodder for anybody." Fox News Digital reported reaching out to the White House and to Biden for comment; neither response was noted.
Salazar's law-enforcement background and diplomatic service give his critique a credibility that generic partisan complaints lack. He is not an activist. He is not a commentator. He is a man who held senior positions under two Democratic presidents, watched the party's leadership structure shift around him, and concluded that his own side failed on the issue that mattered most to the people living along the border.
When a Democrat who served Obama and Biden says the border was broken and nobody in the White House was in charge, the rest of the country is entitled to ask what took so long to admit it.