Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday tried answering her Republican critics head-on when she made her long-awaited visit to the U.S.-Mexico border, as former President Donald Trump ramped up his rhetoric on immigration and called on her to resign.
As Air Force Two landed in southern Arizona and Harris toured a stretch of border wall outside Douglas with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, she was faced with the dual tasks of trying to overcome her own political weakness on the immigration issue and boosting Democratic candidates in races that will help determine which party controls the House and Senate back in Washington.
Harris pledged, if elected, to impose a five-year ban on anyone caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. They also would be barred from seeking asylum.
“Our system must be orderly and secure,” she said, vowing to “surge” more personnel, training and technology to the border, and to “double” Justice Department personnel going after drug cartels and others involved in fentanyl trafficking.
“They’ve got a tough job and they need, rightly, support to do their job. They are very dedicated,” Harris said of border officers. “And so, I’m here to talk with them about what we can continue to do to support them. And also thank them for the hard work they do.”
The Democratic nominee devoted ample time to slamming Trump for his border record as president and for pushing Senate Republicans earlier this year to kill a bipartisan border and immigration package. “That’s an abdication of leadership,” she said.
The package would have empowered the president to reduce the flow of migrants into the U.S., speed up the asylum approvals process, which currently can take years, and expand legal pathways to immigration. It included just over $20 billion to address the operational needs and expand capabilities at the southern border.
Harris — who said as president she would seek “common sense” solutions to immigration — noted it would have “hired 1,500 more border agents and officers, it would have paid for 100 inspection machines to detect fentanyl that is killing tens of thousands of Americans, it would have allowed us to more quickly and effectively remove those who come here illegally.”
“It should be in effect today, producing results, in real-time, right now, for our country, but Donald Trump tanked it,” she said. “Because you see he prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.”
She also appeared to take on Trump’s attack line that she wants to throw open the southern border, saying: “I believe we have a responsibility to set rules at our border and to enforce them. … We must reform our immigration system to ensure it works in an orderly way, it is humane and that it makes our country stronger.”
The administration announced during her visit that it would spend $500 million to expand and update a border port of entry in the Douglas area.
The combatants in the state’s congressional races also have had to grapple with the issue.
One of several high-profile open Senate seats nationwide that will help shape the balance of power in the chamber is in Arizona. Republican Kari Lake, a former newscaster who lost a 2022 bid for governor, is running against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates that race Tilt Democratic.
Harris and her enhanced security footprint parachuted into the midst of a competitive House race where Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., is trying to fend off former Democratic state Sen. Kirsten Engel in a rematch of their 2022 race. Inside Elections ranks that contest as Tilt Republican.
Aaron Cutler, a former senior adviser to House Republican leadership, said late Thursday he doubts Harris’ visit would weigh on voters’ minds when picking among congressional candidates.
Kim Fridkin, a political science professor at Arizona State University, agreed, writing in a Friday email: “I don’t think one visit by Harris to the border will influence the Senate and House races here.”
“In the Senate race, Gallego is running ahead of his opponent, unlike Harris versus Trump. Further, Gallego has leaned into security of the border since the start of his statewide campaign,” she added. “In House races, I don’t think the visit will alter the contours of these contests. … One visit isn’t going to make a difference, but it could begin to change the narrative in the presidential race. If Harris can begin to articulate for voters her vision and plan for controlling the border, she could narrow her disadvantage with Trump on this issue.”
None of the Arizona Democratic congressional candidates were slated to accompany Harris at the border, according to a White House official. She was greeted at an area airport by two Democratic officials, including Sen. Mark Kelly, and three local GOP officials.
Republicans have criticized Harris about her lack of border visits since President Joe Biden tapped her to go after the root causes of illegal migration earlier in his term. Republicans and Trump in recent months have called her the administration’s “border czar,” even as White House officials have contended she was never given that title.
Trump began remarks at an event ostensibly about the economy by contending that “over 13,000 convicted murderers” who entered the U.S. illegally are “roaming our streets, all over the country.” He called Harris and Biden “stupid” and accused the Democratic nominee of supporting “open borders.”
Trump cited Immigration and Customs enforcement data to make the claim. He was pulling the figure from a letter the acting ICE director, Patrick Lechleitner, sent to Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, on Wednesday that put the number of “non-detained” noncitizens with homicide convictions on its national docket at 13,099 — part of 662,566 such noncitizens on its national docket with criminal histories. An ICE spokesperson confirmed the letter in an email Friday.
“You cannot have a country like that,” Trump said. “These are hard, tough, vicious criminals. … They’re dumping them in our country. … You can’t have her as your president. She doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing. She should resign.”
At a Thursday afternoon press conference, Trump said Harris should have canceled her trip, saying “you can’t justify it” of her time as Biden’s point person for illegal migration — or, as he dubbed her, “border czar Harris.” Speaking after a court appearance in New York, he said of illegal immigration: “It’s an invasion,” before repeating a list of misleading claims.
One nonpartisan group that closely monitors all things immigration earlier this year wrote that Biden’s rate of returning migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border should earn him the “returner in chief” moniker, a play on former President Barack Obama’s colloquial nickname of “deporter in chief” for his record on deportations.
“The 1.1 million deportations since the beginning of fiscal year 2021 through February 2024 — the most recent data available — are on pace to match the 1.5 million deportations carried out during the four years President Donald Trump was in office,” according to a July 17 analysis compiled by the Migration Policy Institute. “Combining deportations with expulsions and other actions to block migrants without permission to enter the United States, the Biden administration’s nearly 4.4 million repatriations are already more than any single presidential term since the George W. Bush administration.”
Still, polls show Trump has an edge on the issue. For example, likely voters trust Trump more than Harris to handle immigration to the score of 53 percent to 45 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University survey released Tuesday.
“It doesn’t poll very well for them,” Trump said Thursday. “It polls very well for me.”
One the one hand, Harris went there to try changing that. On the other hand, she went there on a Friday afternoon with a major hurricane blasting the southern part of the country and ahead of another football weekend.
“The trip to the border is a risky gambit for the VP, and a big opportunity for President Trump, as the trip could refocus national attention on VP Harris’ failures as President Biden’s point person for addressing illegal immigration,” Cutler said. “A Friday visit is not going to provide a reset. Instead, it will lead the American people to ask, ‘Why hasn’t she done anything in the past three-and-a-half years to fix the problem?’”
Mark Satter contributed to this report.
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