Amid relentless criticism from former President Trump that she is responsible for out-of-control illegal immigration, Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday made her first visit to the U.S.-Mexico border since 2021, announcing stricter measures she would take as president. to restrict border entry.
“The United States is a sovereign nation and I believe we have a duty to set rules on our border and enforce them,” Harris told a crowd in Douglas, Arizona, gathered in a small auditorium on Cochise College's Douglas campus. where the stage was flanked by large signs that read: “Border Security and Stability.” “We are also a nation of immigrants. “America has been enriched by generations of people who have come from all corners of the world to contribute to our country and become a part of American history.”
Harris said she would go beyond the Biden administration's policies to further restrict border access outside of official ports of entry.
In the early afternoon, Harris visited a port of entry less than 10 miles from the campaign event. Two Border Patrol agents walked with her along the imposing fence built during the Obama administration. Harris later told reporters that he had thanked them for their work.
“They have a difficult job and they rightly need support to do their job. “They are very dedicated,” he said. “And that's why I'm here to talk to them about what we can continue to do to support them.”
He advocated for hiring more agents and adding more fentanyl detection systems at border entry points.
“I reject the false choice that suggests we must choose between securing our border or creating an immigration system that is safe, orderly and humane,” Harris said. “We can and should do both.”
Immigration reform has plagued presidents of both parties for decades.
A bipartisan proposal earlier this year that combined increased funding for border security and foreign aid for Ukraine appeared to be the first breakthrough until it was derailed when Trump urged Republicans to oppose it.
Kamala Harris speaks at Cochise College's Douglas Campus in Douglas, Arizona, on Friday.
(Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press)
That deal fell short of comprehensive plans discussed for decades that would modernize the asylum system and legal immigration process and provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally, including those who arrived as children. Harris on Friday mentioned farm workers and immigrants who arrived as children, known as “Dreamers.”
“As president, I will put politics aside to fix our immigration system and find solutions to problems that have persisted for too long,” Harris said.
Ahead of Harris' visit to the border, Trump noted reports that there are more than 425,000 convicted felons who are in the country illegally but not detained by federal authorities, according to data provided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in response. at the request of a legislator. .
That includes more than 13,000 convicted of homicide and more than 15,800 convicted of sexual assault, according to ICE data shared on X, formerly Twitter, by Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas).
Trump said Thursday that 21 million people entered the country illegally in the last four years alone. He framed the bipartisan effort he helped defeat as “his atrocious border bill.”
“It was not a border bill. “It was an amnesty bill…” he said at a news conference in Manhattan. “Fortunately, Congress was too smart for that.”
The bill would not have provided a path to citizenship for people who lack legal status.
The Republican candidate's appearance at Trump Tower recalled his 2015 campaign announcement there, particularly his references to other nations purposely sending criminals to the United States.
Her comments included multiple falsehoods, such as saying that Harris approved a series of changes to the country's immigration policies that, as vice president, she had no control over, and that she was the “border czar” of the Biden administration. She had been accused of trying to improve conditions in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to prevent residents of those nations from fleeing their home countries.
That assignment has been a political headache for Harris, drawing criticism from the left and right.
On a visit to Central America in 2021, Harris told would-be migrants they would be deported if they crossed the border, angering allies of migrants who said they were fleeing poverty, corruption and violence.
“Don't come,” he said at that moment. “You will be rejected.”
On the same trip, Harris laughed off questions in a nationally televised interview about why she had not yet visited the border as vice president, inflaming critics on the right.
Both political parties are very focused on immigration because, although the presidential race is very close in the polls, Trump has a double-digit lead on the issue of border security. However, that lead has narrowed since President Biden decided not to seek re-election and Harris gained support to become the Democratic presidential nominee.
Border apprehensions hit a record high in December, with agents making nearly 250,000 arrests. As the political issue raged, Biden signed an order in June to sharply restrict asylum claims, leading to a sharp drop in border encounters, to fewer than 60,000 in July and August.
Republicans have been pressing the issue, with GOP members of Congress introducing a resolution “strongly condemning the Biden administration and its border czar, Kamala Harris, for failing to secure the United States border” a day after that the president announced that he would not seek re-election.
While some of the claims by the former president and his allies are demonstrably false and have been denounced by Republican Party elected officials, such as allegations that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, concerns among some voters about the impact of an insecure border in the The economy, crime and the fentanyl crisis are palpable in many communities.
Friday's visit was Harris' second to Arizona since she became a Democratic presidential candidate, according to the Harris-Walz campaign. While Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and others have toured the southwestern battleground state, Harris has focused much of her in-person campaign on critical states further east, such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia. .
Hours before the vice president landed in Arizona, Republicans held a news conference featuring two mothers whose daughters were raped and murdered by immigrants who were in the country illegally and the mother of a teenage son who overdosed on fentanyl. The women criticized Harris for the administration's immigration policy and for visiting the border so close to the election.
“I'm trying with all my might not to cry. We live 1,800 miles from the border,” said Patty Morin, mother of Rachel Morin, a mother of five who was brutally attacked while walking on a busy, bucolic public trail in Maryland. His body was found in a drainage pipe.
“No one is safe in America, no one is safe. “If you have a sanctuary city in your state, you’re not safe,” he said. “They have bussed, flown and trained illegal immigrants to literally every corner and every small town across the United States.”
Such fears are among the reasons Harris' campaign ran an ad about immigration in Arizona on Friday and visited the southern border less than a month and a half before Election Day. As vice president, she previously visited the region once in 2021, when she toured the port of entry and border operation in El Paso.
Mehta reported from Phoenix and Pinho reported from Douglas. Times staff writers Noah Bierman and Andrea Castillo contributed to this report from Washington, DC.
