Harris campaign kicks off with tough statements on border security

Presidential candidate Kamala Harris and other Democrats have gone on the offensive, championing immigration and border security, campaigning on an issue Republicans have long viewed as one of the Biden administration’s key weaknesses.

A new television ad from Harris’ campaign highlights the presumptive Democratic nominee’s background as a prosecutor, drawing on her time as San Francisco’s district attorney and California’s attorney general.

“As vice president, she sponsored the toughest border enforcement law in decades,” a narrator says in the video. “And as president, she will hire thousands more border agents and crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking. Fixing the border is hard. So is Kamala Harris.”

The ad builds on comments Harris made last week at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, where she told the estimated 15,000 supporters that her record as a prosecutor showed she would take a tough approach to the issue.

“I was the attorney general of a border state. I went after the transnational gangs, the drug cartels, the human traffickers,” Harris said. “I prosecuted them in case after case and won, so I know what I’m talking about.”

At the same time, Harris said her approach to immigration would be multifaceted and that she would not abandon undocumented immigrants entirely. She advocated for policies that include “strong border security and an earned path to citizenship.”

Meanwhile, Harris’ campaign has pointed to the administration’s current policies as working. A campaign statement Monday cited Customs and Border Protection figures, touting how the number of border crossings has dropped for five months and how “two of Mexico’s most notorious and dangerous drug lords” have been apprehended.

The five months coincide with new asylum restrictions imposed by President Joe Biden in May and the arrests of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of Zambada’s former partner Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

Harris’ move comes after Trump and Republicans portrayed her as the Biden administration’s “border czar” largely responsible for the administration’s immigration policies as they push the issue to the forefront of the race for the White House.

States like Arizona and Nevada, which are directly affected by illegal immigration, are battleground states that could sway the outcome of the presidential election. Harris’ campaign spent $1.56 million to air the TV ad in eight states where polls are tight, two of which are Arizona and Nevada, according to data from AdImpact.

Republicans still appear to have an edge over Democrats on immigration. A Marquette Law School poll conducted late last month found that likely voters believe Trump will outperform Harris on immigration by a 13-point margin.

The House GOP passed a resolution just before Congress left town for the summer that sought to link Harris to the fentanyl crisis and stories of crime tied to migrants crossing the border. Six Democrats, from moderate districts or districts near the southern border, joined Republicans in that vote.

Rep. James R. Comer of Kentucky, chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, said Sunday on Fox News that he would investigate Harris’ immigration record, including requests for documents from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol about correspondence with the vice president’s office.

“I don’t think anything Kamala Harris would say regarding the southern border would be credible to the American people, because this administration has not only failed on the southern border, but they have, in my opinion, willfully and knowingly sent an invitation to people around the world to cross that border,” Comer said on “Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy.”

Donald Trump criticized Harris, who spoke to Elon Musk in a high-profile conversation at X Space on Monday night, for not doing enough at the US southern border.

“She was the border czar, and you’re letting them get away with their disinformation campaign,” Trump said. “Now she’s trying to say she wasn’t — she wasn’t really involved, and the whole thing is horrible. She was in total charge. She could have closed the border without (Biden).”

Democrats say the title is inaccurate and that her role was limited to identifying the core problems that draw Central American migrants to the United States.

A key point in the Harris ad and from Democrats is the failure of the bipartisan border deal. Vice presidential candidate Tim Walz has pointed to that Senate compromise as the key to a Harris plan to stop illegal immigration.

Democrats say the legislation would be crucial to stemming the flow of migrants across the border, while critics say the measure would make matters worse. Democrats have blamed Trump for killing the legislation.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on “The View” earlier this month that the rejection of the border security bill at Trump’s behest shows that Republicans don’t want to do anything about immigration.

“It’s not just that he doesn’t want a leader he disagrees with to get credit,” Buttigieg said. “He doesn’t want America to solve that problem, because the worse that problem is in America, the better it is for Donald Trump.”

Comer said the bill was introduced three years into the Biden-Harris administration. “We had tens of millions of illegals flowing through our country. They did nothing to stop the flow,” Comer said Sunday on Fox News.

At least one other Democrat is following suit and taking a tough stance on immigration.

Michelle Vallejo, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Texas, said in a TV ad released Tuesday that her family was able to reach the “Sueño Americano” in Texas, but at the same time expressed the need to “get serious about finding solutions to the chaos at our border.”

“As the next Congresswoman from Texas’ 15th Congressional District, I am prepared to work with both Democrats and Republicans to secure our border,” Vallejo said. “We deserve better than an extremist using our home for her own personal gain, and I have never been more confident that we will win this November by working on real solutions for our community.”

Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., said Tuesday on CNN that Harris and other Democrats should be campaigning on securing the border. “I mean, the best politician, the best elected official, is the one who says what people are already thinking, and people are talking about the border. That’s a real problem,” Suozzi said.