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Vice President Kamala Harris went on the offensive in opposition to former President Donald Trump on immigration Friday throughout her visit to the southern border in Arizona as she tries to show a political vulnerability on its head.
Immigration has featured prominently within the 2024 presidential election, with polls exhibiting voters inserting extra belief in Trump to deal with the problem than Harris.
Democrats, grappling with years of border crises, have tried to achieve floor by pointing to the bipartisan border measure that congressional Republicans blocked earlier this yr after Trump got here out in opposition to it. Harris on Friday lambasted Trump for his function in stymying that invoice.
“It was the strongest border safety invoice we have now seen in a long time. It was endorsed by the Border Patrol union. And it needs to be in impact in the present day, producing leads to actual time, proper now, for our nation,” she stated at a rally in Douglas, a city on the US-Mexico border.
“However Donald Trump tanked it. He picked up the telephone and known as some buddies in Congress and stated, ‘Cease the invoice,’” she stated. “He prefers to run on an issue as an alternative of fixing an issue. And the American individuals deserve a president who cares extra about border safety than taking part in political video games and their private political future.”
She stated she would ask Congress to move the measure if she is elected, and would signal it into legislation. She additionally laid out a sequence of proposals that she stated had been “not nearly some rhetoric at a rally,” however would assist stem the circulation of migrants into the US.
Advisers to the vp stay involved in regards to the hole between the candidates on immigration. However in addition they cite recent polling exhibiting Trump’s lead on the problem eroding since Harris took over from President Joe Biden on the high of the Democratic ticket – offering them a possibility, they are saying, to amplify their message and shut the hole additional.
Harris outlined plans throughout her Arizona cease Friday that may make it even more durable to raise border restrictions which have largely barred migrants from in search of asylum within the US.
It’s the clearest instance but of the marketing campaign doubling down on border safety by embracing strict guidelines which have been condemned by some corners of the Democratic Get together. Harris would go a step additional than President Joe Biden’s June govt motion by making the edge for lifting restrictions more durable to achieve.
“Options are at hand if we deal with fixing an issue and never operating on an issue,” Harris stated.
She stated she’d work with Congress to create a pathway to citizenship for “hardworking immigrants who’ve been right here for years, for years, and need to have a system that works,” in addition to “Dreamers” – undocumented immigrants introduced into the US as kids, who are allowed to stay and work within the US underneath an Obama-era program however typically can’t turn into residents underneath present legislation.
“They’re American in each approach. However nonetheless, they don’t have an earned pathway to citizenship. And this downside has gone unsolved at this level now for many years,” Harris stated. “The identical goes for farmworkers who be certain that we have now meals on our tables and maintain our agricultural business – they usually too have been in authorized limbo for years as a result of politicians have refused to return collectively and repair our damaged immigration system.”
Earlier this yr, Biden introduced an govt motion severely limiting the power of migrants to hunt asylum on the US southern border in the event that they crossed unlawfully – a departure from decadeslong protocol. Immigrant advocates have likened the chief motion to Trump-era insurance policies.
The measure may be turned on and off and lifted when there’s a each day common of fewer than 1,500 encounters between ports of entry, amongst different standards. It stays in place.
Homeland Safety officers have credited the motion for driving down border crossings to the bottom level since 2020.
Trump alluded to his present polling edge Thursday as he slammed his rival forward of her go to to the border.
“Why would she go to the border now, taking part in proper into the hand of her opponent?” the previous president advised reporters at Trump Tower in New York. “She retains speaking about how she supposedly needs to repair the border. We’d merely ask: ‘Why didn’t she do it 4 years in the past?’”
A part of the Harris marketing campaign’s technique to counter Trump contains a new ad, titled “By no means Backed Down,” that can run in Arizona and different battleground states highlighting Harris’ earlier border-related work and outlining her plans, together with hiring extra border brokers.
“She put cartel members and drug traffickers behind bars, and she’s going to safe our border,” the narrator says.
The Harris marketing campaign signaled early on that it deliberate to counter Trump’s assaults on the vp and the administration’s dealing with of border safety. Solely days after she launched her presidential bid, marketing campaign officers released a video drawing a distinction between Harris and Trump on immigration coverage – notably leaning on border safety.
“Kamala Harris helps rising the variety of Border Patrol brokers. Donald Trump blocked a invoice to extend the variety of Border Patrol brokers,” the voiceover within the video acknowledged.
Harris beforehand visited the border as vp and has cited her work as a border-state senator and state lawyer common.
Friday’s go to comes at a time when border crossings are the bottom they’ve been since 2020 – and follows a current New York Times/Siena College poll that confirmed Trump main within the battleground state. A Fox Information survey of the state that was launched on Thursday discovered no clear chief, with Trump at 50% and Harris at 47% amongst probably voters.
US officers have touted back-to-back months of low border crossings, citing current govt motion to curb asylum entry on the southern border, at the same time as Trump has levied assaults over the Biden administration’s dealing with of border safety.
The dramatic current drop in border crossings has supplied a reprieve to the Biden administration after grappling with file crossings amid unprecedented migration throughout the Western hemisphere.
Over that point, Republicans have falsely referred to Harris because the “border czar,” casting her as solely accountable for the administration of the US-Mexico border. It’s a title that Harris workforce has been making an attempt to shake off because the second Biden assigned her to deal with the basis causes of migration in 2021.
Harris has solely often talked about her project, which, sources stated, has proven early success in Central America because of main private-sector funding. However that’s been bundled with the administration’s bigger migration points.
Harris marketing campaign officers suppose she has a case on immigration: utilizing the failed bipartisan border measure to forged Trump as unserious on the border and citing her file as California lawyer common tackling transnational felony gangs.
Marketing campaign allies have additionally burdened the necessity to look past the border and converse to broader immigration reform, pulling from the vp’s background within the Senate and in California engaged on immigrant points.
“It’s good she’s going. It’s useful to get her message on the market,” one supply near the marketing campaign advised CNN. “Clearly, she’s on the border – that’s the first focus. But in addition speaking extra broadly about the entire system.”
Final week, Harris slammed Trump over his immigration proposals, citing his contentious insurance policies, together with his proposal for mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, to color a darkish image of her Republican rival.
“Whereas we struggle to maneuver our nation ahead to a brighter future, Donald Trump and his extremist allies will maintain making an attempt to drag us backward. All of us bear in mind what they did to tear households aside, and now they’ve pledged to hold out the biggest deportation, a mass deportation in American historical past,” she stated at a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute management convention in Washington.
“Think about what that may seem like and what that may be. How’s that going to occur? Huge raids, huge detention camps. What are they speaking about?” she stated.
This story has been up to date with extra info.
CNN’s Package Maher contributed to this report.