DOUGLAS, Ariz. – With triple-digit high temperatures forecast for late September, Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday wades into one of the hottest issues of the presidential campaign: immigration.
Harris did his first visit to the southern border of the United States for more than three years. It’s President Joe Biden’s first visit since he left the race, and he’s at the top of the ticket.
“We have an immigration system that is broken,” Harris said said Wednesday In an interview with MSNBC. “And it needs to be fixed.”
Harris will push for tougher security measures, including new fentanyl detection machines and more Border Patrol agents, a senior campaign aide told NBC News. The aide said the Chinese government plans to put more pressure on companies that make the precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl. His team also released a new ad touting his record as California’s attorney general and highlighting his prosecution of transnational gangs and drug traffickers.
Harris will also propose tightening U.S. asylum restrictions on Friday, the aide said.
He would propose going further than Biden’s executive action this year that if border encounters rise above the 7-day average of 1,500, migrants who cross the border illegally cannot apply for asylum. According to a senior campaign official, Harris intends to push for lower illegal border crossings in order to implement the restriction. The official also said Harris would implement stronger emergency authorities.
It’s a notable attempt to rebrand the vice president in an administration with a record 10 million illegal border crossings Since Biden took office. (Following its release, links dropped dramatically enforcement action tightening asylum restrictions this year.)
When discussing immigration, there is Harris he attacked more and more Trump for his efforts to kill a bilateral border finance deal this year.
“He actually killed a bill that could have been a solution because he wants to work on the problem,” Harris said in an interview with MSNBC.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., argued that the bill being debated by the Senate did not go far enough, while Republicans tried to label Harris an “administration” of the administration.border king.” His aides insisted he had powers very narrow and he was tasked with investigating the root causes of migration in the “Northern Triangle” countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
“He continues to talk about how he wants to fix the border,” Trump said at a press conference at Trump Tower on Thursday. “Why didn’t he fix this about four years ago?”
Moment NBC News survey A poll this month found 54% of registered voters thought Trump would do a better job of managing border security and immigration control, compared with 33% who agreed with Harris.
The poll also found that 57% of registered voters think Harris would be better at humanely treating immigrants and protecting immigrant rights, compared to 29% that Trump would be better.
“They are infecting our country,” Trump said Thursday. “They are destroying our country”
The heated debate over immigration is particularly important in the Arizona battleground, where rancher John Ladd’s family has owned 16,000 acres in Cochise County for more than a century.
“Trump got it,” he said in an interview, adding that the number of border arrests on his property reached 150 a day during the Biden administration, but was lower under Trump.
“They come to me every day,” he said. “But they live with you.”
He said miles of border wall were built on his property and had to be repaired multiple times earlier this year after smugglers punched holes in it. He is skeptical of Harris’s tougher stance on immigration.
“It’s nonsense,” he said. “This is completely false. He doesn’t care about the border. He wants to open. That’s why I don’t believe a word he said.”
Danya Acosta, a City Council member and former sheriff’s deputy in nearby Douglas, said Harris won her over despite being disappointed by heated rhetoric about immigration on the campaign trail.
“A lot of us here in border communities are a little fed up with the polarization that’s going on when it comes to this,” he said.
He said he voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020, but said he was disappointed because he thought Biden’s border policy was weak. The failure of a bipartisan border bill in the Republican-controlled House changed his mind.
“It really changed my vote because it’s not about the issue — it’s about political gain,” he said. “It is very unfortunate that people are used as pawns for political reasons.”
Kelly O’Donnell and Megan Lebowitz contributed.