Amid relentless criticism from former President Trump that she is answerable for out-of-control unlawful immigration, Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday made her first go to to the U.S.-Mexico border since 2021, saying extra stringent measures she would take as president to limit border entry.
“The United States is a sovereign nation, and I believe we have a duty to set rules at our border, and to enforce them,” Harris instructed a crowd in Douglas, Ariz., gathered in a small auditorium at Cochise Faculty Douglas Campus, the place the stage was flanked by massive indicators that learn, “Border security and stability.” “We are also a nation of immigrants. The United States has been enriched by generations of people who have come from every corner of the world to contribute to our country and to become part of the American story.”
Harris stated she would transcend Biden administration insurance policies to additional limit border entry outdoors of official ports of entry.
Earlier within the afternoon, Harris visited a port of entry lower than 10 miles from the marketing campaign occasion. Two Border Patrol brokers walked together with her alongside the towering fence, which was constructed in the course of the Obama administration. Harris later instructed reporters that she had thanked them for his or her work.
“They’ve got a tough job and they need, rightly, support to do their job. They are very dedicated,” she stated. “And so I’m here to talk with them about what we can continue to do to support them.”
She advocated for hiring extra officers and including extra fentanyl detection programs at border entry factors.
“I reject the false choice that suggest we must either choose between securing our border or creating a system of immigration that is safe, orderly and humane,” Harris stated. “We can and we must do both.”
Immigration reform has bedeviled presidents of each events for many years.
A bipartisan proposal earlier this yr that mixed elevated funding for border safety and international support for Ukraine seemed to be the primary breakthrough till it was derailed when Trump urged Republicans to oppose it.
Kamala Harris speaks at Cochise Faculty Douglas Campus in Douglas, Ariz., on Friday.
(Carolyn Kaster / Related Press)
That deal fell wanting complete plans mentioned for many years that may revamp the asylum system and the authorized immigration course of and supply a pathway to citizenship for an estimated 11 million individuals within the nation with out authorized authorization, together with those that arrived as kids. Harris on Friday talked about farm employees and immigrants who arrived as kids, referred to as “Dreamers.”
“As president, I will put politics aside to fix our immigration system and find solutions to problems which have persisted for far too long,” Harris stated.
Prematurely of Harris’ go to to the border, Trump pointed to reviews that there are greater than 425,000 convicted criminals who’re within the nation illegally however not detained by federal authorities, in accordance with knowledge offered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in response to a lawmaker’s request.
That features greater than 13,000 convicted of murder and greater than 15,800 convicted of sexual assault, in accordance with the ICE knowledge shared on X, previously Twitter, by Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas).
Trump stated Thursday that 21 million individuals entered the nation illegally in simply the final 4 years. He framed the bipartisan effort that he helped defeat as “her atrocious border bill.”
“It was not a border bill. It was an amnesty bill … ,” he stated at a information convention in Manhattan. “Fortunately Congress was too smart for it.”
The invoice wouldn’t have offered a path to citizenship for individuals who lack authorized standing.
The GOP nominee’s look at Trump Tower was harking back to his 2015 marketing campaign announcement there, notably his references to different nations purposefully sending criminals to the US.
His remarks included a number of falsehoods, similar to saying Harris accredited a raft of adjustments to the nation’s immigration insurance policies that as vp she had no management over, and that she was the Biden administration’s “border czar.” She had been charged with attempting to enhance circumstances in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to cease these nations’ residents from fleeing their homelands.
That project has been a political headache for Harris — drawing criticism from the left and proper.
In a 2021 go to to Central America, Harris instructed would-be migrants that they might be deported in the event that they crossed the border, angering allies of immigrants who stated they had been fleeing poverty, corruption and violence.
“Do not come,” she stated on the time. “You will be turned back.”
On the identical journey, Harris laughed off questions in a nationally televised interview about why she had not but visited the border as vp, inflaming critics on the fitting.
Each political events are hyper-focused on immigration as a result of whereas the presidential race may be very tight within the polling, Trump has a double-digit edge on the difficulty of border safety. That edge has narrowed, nevertheless, since President Biden determined to not search reelection and Harris garnered the help to change into the Democratic presidential nominee.
Border stops hit a document in December, with brokers making practically 250,000 arrests. Because the political downside raged, Biden signed an order in June to closely limit asylum claims, prompting a pointy drop in border encounters, to fewer than 60,000 in July and August.
Republicans have been hammering the difficulty, with GOP members of Congress submitting a decision that “strongly condemns the Biden Administration and its Border Czar, Kamala Harris’s, failure to secure the United States border” in the future after the president introduced he wouldn’t search reelection.
Whereas among the former president and his allies’ claims are demonstrably false and have been denounced by GOP elected officers, similar to allegations that Haitian migrants are consuming pets in Springfield, Ohio, issues amongst some voters in regards to the influence of an insecure border on the financial system, crime and the fentanyl disaster are palpable in lots of communities.
Friday’s go to was Harris’ second to Arizona since she turned the Democratic presidential nominee, in accordance with the Harris-Walz marketing campaign. Whereas Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and others have swung by way of the southwestern battleground state, Harris has targeted a lot of her in-person campaigning in crucial states farther east, similar to Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia.
Hours earlier than the vp landed in Arizona, Republicans held a press name that includes two moms whose daughters had been raped and killed by immigrants who had been within the nation illegally and the mom of a teenage son who overdosed on fentanyl. The ladies lambasted Harris for the administration’s immigration coverage and for visiting the border so near the election.
“I’m trying very hard not to cry. We live 1,800 miles away from the border,” stated Patty Morin, the mom of Rachel Morin, a mom of 5 who was brutally attacked whereas strolling a bucolic and well-traveled public path in Maryland. Her physique was found in a drain pipe.
“No one is safe in America, no one is safe. If you have a sanctuary city in your state, you’re not safe,” she stated. “They have bused, flown, trained illegal immigrants to literally every nook and cranny and every tiny town in the whole of the United States.”
Such fears are among the many causes the Harris marketing campaign launched an advert about immigration in Arizona on Friday, and visited the Southern border lower than a month and a half earlier than election day. As vp, she beforehand visited the area as soon as in 2021, when she toured the port of entry and border operation in El Paso.
Mehta reported from Phoenix and Pinho reported from Douglas. Instances workers writers Noah Bierman and Andrea Castillo contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.
