Biden has also faced pressure from all sides over Vice President Kamala Harris’ decision on Wednesday to embark on a trip to the southwest border in Arizona as she plots out her own presidential campaign.
Harris, who is seen as particularly weak on immigration and border security — key issues to voters at a time where the flow of illegal migrants shows no sign of ebbing, aims to transform what has long been viewed as a liability into an asset as she fends off fierce attacks from former President Donald Trump and Republicans.
Trump and his allies have made Harris a punching bag for years, repeatedly pointing to her border security strategy as anything but the solution. High numbers of migrants crossing the southern border have been a target for Republican attacks during President Biden’s administration. Trump’s campaign recently called Harris’ visit a “political stunt,” and the ex-president himself said, “Whatever she says tomorrow you know is a lie because she was the worst we have ever had in that kitchen.
To that end, Harris is likely to highlight how she would better tackle the immigration problem than Trump during her stop in Douglas, Arizona. She’s going to stress the bipartisan border security plan, which she says is the strongest in a generation. Measures include hiring more border agents and using new technology to deal with the trafficking of fentanyl.
Harris has previously called out Trump for his record, with a statement stating that while he “has been talking a big game about securing our border, he does not walk the walk.” Though Pelosi called the vote on behalf of a “bipartisan border security bill” that passed unanimously out of committee, she blamed Trump for derailing it in addition to “tanking the bipartisan deal because he thought it would help him win an election. If elected, Harris has promised to revive the bill.
In the two months she has been the Democratic presidential nominee after replacing Biden on the ticket, Harris has said she wears her “border state prosecutor” hat and could attack international gangsters and cartel kingpins involved in illegal drug, gun and human traffic. This fits with the broader focus of her campaign on her much tougher line on securing the borders, but an enforcement-first approach that would allow many who have lived in the U.S. for years—sometimes decades—to eventually become citizens.
The problem is so complex you need a complete plan,” Harris told MSNBC in one of her television interviews. “Which includes what we need to do to secure not only our border but address the reality that we have to also provide for an earned pathway for citizenship.”
To help bolster those efforts, the Harris campaign is going up with a new ad in Arizona and other battleground states showcasing her bio. “Cartel members arrested, drug traffickers jailed … She fought to protect us,” the ad’s narrator says.
Since taking office in 2021, Biden tasked Harris with leading efforts to address the “root causes” of migration in Central America — a portfolio that has long drawn GOP fire. The White House has pushed back on that label, but it’s what some Republicans—and the media—have said in their criticism of Harris and by extension President Joe Biden over the border issues.
Trump is speaking as he runs trying to get his presidency back. That would be an even more extreme border enforcement, potentially the police state or a mass deployment of forces in carrying out deportations. Asked about Harris visiting the border during a North Carolina campaign stop, Trump said “When Kamala talks about the border, her credibility is less than zero. And he continued directly to Biden: “When she tells you about the border, ask her one simple question — why didn’t you do it 4 years ago?” “
The ex-Commander-in-Chief has hammered the Biden-Harris administration over its claim to have let in millions coming into the country through no legal means of entry. While new asylum restrictions that Biden introduced after a bipartisan border bill collapsed have brought noticeable declines in illegal border crossings, Trump is still fiercely critical.
When it comes to issues, a number of Americans rate immigration as one of the top couple alongside the economy, inflation on the increase, and abortion. Polls show Trump leads Harris by a large margin when it comes to who voters trust more on immigration.
The trip marked Trump’s most recent visit to the border, where he stopped in Arizona during an August trip for one of the battleground states that will determine who wins a hypothetical 2024 White House bid.
