Vice President Kamala Harris’ battlefield border state tour The condemnation Friday comes from House Republicans whose districts represent the front lines of the current migrant crisis.
At issue is Harris’ campaign stop in the key state border city of Douglas, Arizona, which comes less than six weeks before voters go to the polls to choose the next president.
“I remain steadfast in my willingness to work with anyone — on both sides of the aisle — to address the crisis at the border,” Rep. Juan Ciccomani, R-Ariz., told Fox News Digital. “However, this appears to be nothing more than a photo opportunity to try and take political advantage of Vice President Harris’s border visit.”
Siccomani is one of several GOP lawmakers from border districts who are accusing Harris of caring more about optics than results. They have long blamed the Biden administration for a record number of illegal border crossings since Democrats took office, and Harris’s handling of the border is one of the Republicans’ most significant political threats against them.
Harris heads to southern border looking to hit back at immigration criticisms
Representatives Darrell Issa and Juan Ciccomani were among those who criticized Vice President Harris’ border visit. (Getty Images)
“For three and a half years the vice president has been in a position to address this crisis, but instead he has ignored it,” Siccomani said. “As a result, border districts like mine have suffered from their lack of leadership.”
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Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., whose San Diego-anchored district includes about 100 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, suggested the border crisis is a “feature, not a flaw” of the administration’s policies.
Issa said, “What happened next? America’s deadliest drug crisis ever, unprecedented trafficking of women and girls, and 10 million illegal people allowed to enter and remain in the country.” “Kamala should apologize to America, not a photo session.”
Rep. Monica de la Cruz, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital that she believes Harris’s trip is purely about playing politics.
“It’s no coincidence that this last-minute trip is coming when polls show Harris is struggling in Arizona,” he said. “Regardless of the photo op, the fact is that on Harris’ watch, we have faced an unprecedented border crisis, the exact opposite of our secure border under President Trump.”
Representative Monica de la Cruz, whose district also borders the border, similarly accused Harris of staging a photo opportunity. (Getty Images)
The 2024 election sees a paradigm shift in how Democrats are discussing the border. Candidates on the left need to appeal to moderate and independent voters – a group that includes Harris – who has stressed the need for border security,
Democrats have also pointed to President Biden’s executive actions on asylum, which have led to a decline in the number of illegal border crossings between ports of entry in recent months. There were fewer encounters along the southwest border in July than in former President Trump’s final month in office.
However, on an annual basis, Biden’s tenure has seen more illegal crossings – with 2022 seeing a record 2.2 million border encounters.
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Crossings also increased between 2020 and 2021 when Biden took office and rolled back many of Trump’s more restrictive border policies.
But rather than an issue uniting both parties, it has divided Democrats and Republicans over how to reach that goal.
Harris has repeatedly voiced her support for the border security plan, which was rejected earlier this year by Republican lawmakers who said it did not do enough to secure the border and also codify those policies. Did, which he had opposed. Democrats accused the GOP of killing the legislation because former President Trump opposed it.
Asked for comment on Republicans’ attacks against Harris’ trip, a campaign spokesperson pointed Fox News Digital to comments by a senior Harris campaign official that previewed the vice president’s Friday comments.
Harris is expected to meet with her rival, former President Trump, during her visit to the border. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)
She is expected to accuse Trump of stalling progress on border security for political gain and advocate for stricter border security measures.
The Harris campaign also pointed to a statement on her visit to Fox News Digital, saying Harris would “outline her plan to deliver real solutions on border security and the fentanyl crisis – unlike Donald Trump, who has broken our “Huey did nothing to fix the immigration system, made things worse, and killed bipartisan border solutions to play politics.”
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Harris has not visited the border since 2021, a trip that came shortly after she was tasked with leading the solution to the root causes of mass migration, earning her the informal title of “border czar.”
The Trump campaign said in its own statement on Harris’ Friday visit: “Kamala’s last-minute visit to the border and empty call for more security 39 days before the election will not rewrite the chaos, crime and bloodshed of the last 44 months. ” “His open border policy.”
