Vice President Kamala Harris Heading to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona on Friday is her first visit to the border since a visit to El Paso in 2021 and coming amid a campaign fueled by her past on the topic of illegal immigration.
Harris has faced continued attacks from her Republican rival, former president trumpAnd the Border Patrol union argues that he is weak on border security, an issue that many Republicans see as a political weakness for the vice president.
“After years of not only ignoring the problem, but helping to create it, Vice President Kamala is finally going to the border,” the National Border Patrol Council said in a statement. “It’s nothing more than checking the box for him, but really it’s a slap in the face to the men and women who risk their lives every day, and it’s also a slap in the face to those Americans. People. Where was she?”
Harris heads to southern border looking to hit back at immigration criticisms
This division refers to Vice President Kamala Harris and the southern border. (Fox News/Joe Riddle/Getty Images))
Harris’ campaign has pointed to her past as a prosecutor who combated international criminal gangs, and says she is the candidate to secure the border because she supports a bipartisan funding bill.
But Harris has a long history on immigration on the national level.
California Dreamers 2018-2019
As a senator from California, Harris was on the far left of the Democratic Party on immigration, and in 2018 she pressured her colleagues in the Senate to reject the Trump administration’s request for more funding for immigration detention beds and Border Patrol agents. Poured.
In a letter to senators on the Senate Appropriations Committee in 2018, Harris and other senators asked them to “reject President Trump’s FY19 funding request for an expensive and ineffective border wall, new Border Patrol agents, and a large increase in U.S. immigration.” Called to do.” Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel and detention beds.”
“We urge you to reduce funding for the administration Reckless immigration enforcement “Operations that are tearing families apart and hurting our economy.”
Senator Kamala Harris is pictured in a parade in California. (Obtained by Fox Digital.)
Harris focused on border security and Trump enjoyed the fight
He also questioned Ronald Vitiello, former President Trump’s nominee to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), whether he was “aware of the perception” of parallels between ICE and the KKK.
“Are you aware that there is a perception that ICE is administering its power in a way that is creating fear and intimidation among immigrants in particular and immigrants coming from Mexico and Central America in particular?” He asked again.
In recently resurfaced footage, Harris is seen chanting “Education’s up, up, down with deportations” at a rally that also included now-disgraced actor Jussie Smollett.
2019 presidential campaign
Harris launched a bid for the Democratic nomination for president in 2019. His campaign included a promise to expand Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) By executive order, which protects illegal immigrants brought to the US as minors.
She said she would eliminate age requirements on applications and use parole authority to create a “parole in place” program to put those illegal immigrants on the path to citizenship.
He also promised to protect illegal immigrant parents of US citizens and green card holders from deportation by executive order. Overall, his plan was predicted to protect more than six million illegal immigrants from deportation.
2021: Vice President ‘Border Czar’
Harris became vice president in 2021 and the administration immediately rolled back several Trump-era initiatives and attempted to impose a moratorium on deportations.
The number of migrants has skyrocketed, and Biden told reporters in March that Harris would be put in charge of tackling issues such as root causes, climate change, poverty and violence that the administration believes are driving migrants. is being moved north.
This soon led to Harris being dubbed ‘The Lady’ by media outlets and Republicans “Border Jar.” The White House rejected that title, but it has stuck with him since and made him a key figure in the crisis, along with DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Summer 2021: pressure increases
After Biden took office, and with numbers reaching record highs in the following months, Harris immediately came under pressure to visit the border as the White House said her role was more than directly related to the border. It was diplomatic. Instead she went to Mexico and Guatemala and delivered a tough message to migrants there that upset immigrant activists.
“Don’t come. Don’t come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our borders,” he said. “If you come within our limits you will be turned back.”
The pressure on them to go to the American border continued to increase.
“You haven’t been to the border,” NBC’s Lester Holt told her, after she claimed she had been to the border.
“And I haven’t been to Europe,” Harris quipped.
Immigrants line up at a remote US Border Patrol processing center after crossing the US-Mexico border in Lukeville, Arizona, on December 7, 2023. According to federal sources, Jesus Enrique Ramirez Cabrera entered the country illegally through Arizona in December 2023, was captured and released into the U.S. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Later that month, she went to the border in El Paso, Texas, where she received a briefing and toured a processing center, meeting with advocates and providers.
2022: More time needed
Harris will be largely invisible for the rest of 2021 and 2022 root cause strategyHowever, private sector initiatives to attract investments to address those root causes will continue.
In June 2022, he traveled to the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles and met with other leaders to discuss ways to deal with the crisis. During that summit, he announced that commitments of $3.2 billion had been secured from private sector companies.
He also faced criticism for declaring the border secure despite the ongoing crisis and large-scale release in the interior areas.
“The border is secure, but our immigration system is also broken, especially in the last four years before we arrived, and it needs to be fixed,” Harris said on NBC.
2023: More records broken
Harris made only a few appearances regarding the border crisis in 2023, although her private investment strategy continued to bring additional commitments from companies.
But the crisis did not stay out of the news and 2023 saw new records broken for the sheer number of migrant encounters and several chaotic scenes at the border.
Records were broken with more than 2.4 million encounters in fiscal year 2023, while in December there were almost 250,000 encounters In the same month.
2024: Support for bipartisan bill, presidential bid
While the White House continued to reject the “border czar” narrative, Harris threw her support behind a bipartisan Senate agreement to provide more funding at the border and reduce migrant crossings when they reach a certain level.
He also supported several executive orders from President Biden that would impose a cap on asylum and efforts to provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who are spouses of U.S. citizens.
He has tried to portray himself as tougher on the border than former President Trump.
Now, with a stop in Douglas, Arizona, he aims to show he is better prepared than Trump to deal with the burning issue of immigration and what Republicans have highlighted as the crisis at the southern border.
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“We need a comprehensive plan,” Harris said in an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday. “That includes what we need to do not only to strengthen our border but also to deal with the fact that we also need to create pathways for people to earn citizenship.”
With the border stoppage underway, the Harris campaign is launching a new ad that will run in Arizona and other battleground states that highlights her past border efforts and plans.
The narrator in the ad says, “She put cartel members and drug traffickers behind bars, and she will secure our border.”
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
