Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris talks with John Modlin, the chief patrol agent for the Tucson Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol, right, and Blaine Bennett, the U.S. Border Patrol Douglas Station border patrol agent in charge, as she visits the U.S. border with Mexico in Douglas, Arizona, on Friday (AP)
Harris told the crowd in Douglas that she’d make combatting the trafficking of the synthetic narcotic “a top priority” if she is sworn in as president next year.
The vice president’s visit to the border comes as she seeks to fight Trump on the key issue of his campaign. He rarely makes a public appearance without engaging in incendiary rhetoric on the subject, often crossing a line into outright racism.
Trump and his Republican allies have sought to attack Harris for the Biden administration’s record on migration and have attempted to brand her as a “failed border czar” because of her work handling diplomacy with countries that, until recently, accounted for a significant portion of the immigrants claiming asylum along the US-Mexico border.
But Harris said she would “put politics aside, to fix our immigration system and find solutions to problems which have persisted for far too long” if elected, including by enacting legislation to give so-called “Dreamers” brought to the US illegally as children — as well as “hardworking immigrants” who’ve been in the US “for years” a “path to citizenship.”
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris talks with John Modlin, the chief patrol agent for the Tucson Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol, right, as she visits the U.S. border with Mexico in Douglas, Ariz., Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 (AP)
The vice president contrasted her approach with that of Trump, who she said “did nothing to fix our broken immigration system” during his time in office.
“He did not solve the shortage of immigration judges. He did not solve the shortage of border agents. He did not create lawful pathways into our nation, he did nothing to address an outdated asylum system and did not work with other governments in our hemisphere to deal with what clearly is also a regional challenge,” she said.
“As overdoses went up during his presidency, he fought to slash funding for the fight against fentanyl. And what did he do instead … he separated families. He ripped toddlers out of their mother’s arms, put children in cages and tried to end protections for Dreamers. He made the challenges at the border worse, and he is still fanning the flames of fear and division.”
“That is not the work of a leader,” she added.
Immigration and border security are top issues in Arizona, the only battleground state that borders Mexico and one that contended with a record influx of asylum seekers last year. Trump has an edge with voters on migration, and Harris has gone on offense to improve her standing on the issue and defuse a key line of political attack for Trump.
In nearly every campaign speech she gives, Harris recounts how a sweeping bipartisan package aiming to overhaul the federal immigration system collapsed in Congress earlier this year after Trump urged top Republicans to oppose it.
“The American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games,” Harris plans to say, according to an excerpt of her remarks previewed by her campaign. After the immigration legislation stalled, the Biden administration announced rules that bar migrants from being granted asylum when U.S. officials deem that the southern border is overwhelmed.
Since then, arrests for illegal border crossings have fallen. Harris will also use her trip to remind voters about her work as attorney general of California in confronting crime along the border.
During an August rally in Glendale, outside Phoenix, she talked about helping to prosecute drug- and people-smuggling gangs that operated transnationally and at the border.
With additional reporting by agencies
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Publish date : 2024-09-27 13:45:00
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