Kamala Harris at the border between Mexico and California during her time as the state’s attorney-general – Alamy
When Ms Harris was asked why she had not yet visited the border in an interview at the time, she replied: “I haven’t been to Europe [either]”.
It was seen as a PR disaster and her trip to El Paso, Texas, followed shortly afterwards.
Conditions on the southern border have since improved, with shelters seeing a sharp decline in numbers and official data over the summer recording the number of apprehensions is at the lowest level since Mr Biden entered office.
However, immigration remains an electoral millstone for Ms Harris’ White House run, with polls consistently showing voters trust her far less than Trump on border security and tackling illegal immigration.
In Douglas, Ms Harris spoke to Customs and Border Protection officials and viewed part of a border barrier constructed between 2011 and 2012, during the Obama administration. She also drew on her past work tackling international gangs of drug and people traffickers in California and said she would target the “entire global fentanyl supply chain”.
“As a former attorney general from a border state, she took on international gangs and criminal organisations who traffic drugs, guns, and human beings, and she has long believed we need an immigration system that is secure, fair, orderly and humane, a stark contrast from the divisive and dangerous politics of Donald Trump,” a Harris campaign aide said.
Ms Harris has previously highlighted her support for the tough bipartisan border security legislation that would have granted Mr Biden sweeping powers to shut down the border on days when crossings exceeded a certain threshold, toughen criteria for asylum claims and fund more border agents and deportation flights.
The legislation was blocked from advancing through Congress by Republican senators following a lobbying campaign by Trump who said he did not want to give Mr Biden a “win” on the border in an election year.
Ms Harris frequently highlights her opponent’s intervention to paint him as a political opportunist. “He killed a bill that would have actually been a solution, because he wants to run on a problem, instead of fixing a problem,” she told MSNBC in an interview this week.
While Trump has promised to carry out mass deportations and other measures to remove both illegal and legal migrants from the country, Ms Harris has attempted a more delicate juggling act.
She has supported tough action to secure the border against illegal immigration, while also backing a pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children.
Ms Harris has gained some ground among Hispanic voters, a significant voting bloc in Arizona, but Trump still holds a narrow lead in the state. It will be critical to winning the White House on Nov 5.
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Publish date : 2024-09-27 20:14:00
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