DOUGLAS, Ariz. – Too little, too late?
Vice President Kamala Harris made her first visit to the US-Mexico border as the Democratic presidential nominee Friday to hastily announce measures meant to mitigate the ongoing border crisis fewer than 40 days before election day — despite having been the White House border “czar” for more than three-and-a-half years.
“The United States is a sovereign nation, and I believe we have a duty to set rules at our border and to enforce them,” Harris, 59, said at a rally after touring a section of the border wall in Cochise County.
“And I take that responsibility very seriously.”
She announced that if elected the 47th president, she would improve on an executive order announced by President Biden in June that barred migrants from applying for asylum when they cross the border illegally.
“I will do more to secure our border, to reduce illegal border crossings,” Harris said. “I will take further action to keep the border closed between ports of entry.”
“Those who cross our borders unlawfully will be apprehended and removed and barred from re-entering for five years,” the Democratic nominee pledged.
“We will pursue more severe criminal charges against repeat violators, and if someone does not make an asylum request at a legal point of entry, and instead crosses our border unlawfully, they will be barred from receiving asylum.”
Her proposed tweaks to the 81-year-old president’s executive order were followed by a pledge to pursue amnesty for certain illegal immigrants already in the United States.
“I reject the false choice that suggests we must either choose between securing our border or creating a system of immigration that is safe, orderly, and humane,” Harris said. “We can, and we must, do both.
“As president, I will work with Congress to create, at long last, a pathway to citizenship for hard-working immigrants who have been here for years, for years, and deserve to have a system that works,” she vowed.
Harris indicated that she would implore Congress to create “pathways for citizenship” for illegal immigrants brought to the US as children and for migrant farm workers as well.
She also accused former President Donald Trump, 78, of “sabotage” for opposing a Senate border bill over the summer, and vowed she would “bring it back up and proudly sign into law” if elected.
“The issue of border security is not a new issue to me,” the Biden border “czar” said before touting her work from nearly a decade ago countering transnational criminal organizations as California’s attorney general.
“As attorney general of California, it was 10 years ago that I brought a bipartisan group of American attorneys general and led that group to travel to Mexico City to meet with Mexican attorneys general to address this issue, and in particular, to increase intelligence sharing on gang activity, all of which allowed us to prosecute more human traffickers,” she proudly recalled.
“So stopping transnational criminal organizations and strengthening our border is not new to me, and it is a longstanding priority of mine,” Harris claimed. “I have done that work, and I will continue to treat it as a priority when I am elected president of the United States.”
The Trump campaign slammed the trip to Douglas, Ariz. as a last-ditch effort by Harris to salvage her image on the issue.
“Why didn’t she fix it almost four years ago?” Trump asked reporters during a news conference at Trump Tower Thursday.
“She’s got no plans, got no talent, got no ability to do it.”
Douglas, a former mining town with a population of around 16,000, is located in US Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, one of the busiest for illegal crossings.
Since Oct. 1, 2023, more than 452,000 migrant encounters have been recorded, according to United States Customs and Border Protection data.
Although arrests have dropped since Biden’s June order, critics argue that the damage has already been done.
“I think what has got to happen is, regardless of the administration, I think that at some places you do need to secure the border, primarily because of human trafficking,” Tom Moffett, a minister from nearby Sonoita, told The Post.
“And that border is many times a last stop for someone being human trafficked.
“I think that you definitely need to secure the border. I think it became much more unsecure under this administration than it was the last administration, because I’ve got a lot of Border Patrol friends and this is coming from them.”
Bill Fortenberry, an actor based in the Old West-themed tourist city of Tombstone, agreed the situation has worsened in recent years.
“I see a lot more activity going on,” he said.
“I think we have some smart people in office on both sides. And regardless of who wins, I think that it is something that needs to be addressed. Because right now … what’s going on really isn’t working, but I feel for everybody involved.”
According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Trump leads Harris by two percentage points head-to-head in Arizona, which he lost to Biden four years ago.
“Kamala’s last-minute trip to the border and empty calls for more security 39 days before the election will not rewrite the past 44 months of chaos, crime, and bloodshed caused by her open border policy,” Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
“Over the past four years as Vice President, Kamala laughed when asked why she hadn’t visited the border, denied the existence of a crisis, and pushed for mass amnesty.
Throughout her entire career, Kamala has fought against more funding for Border Patrol, called to abolish ICE, and voted against construction of President Trump’s border wall,” she continued.
“The American people will not be deceived by Kamala’s political games — they are smart enough to realize Kamala Harris has been in charge of the border for four years and she has failed.”
