Harris goes to the border to show toughness against Trump

Washington: For months, Republicans have pushed Vice President Kamala Harris over the southern border, after years of high crossing rates and headlines about immigrants overwhelming public services under the Biden administration.

On Friday, Harris will stop along a stretch of that 2,000-mile dividing line in Arizona’s political battleground, where she will directly address an issue where polls still show her as a major weakness. It will be her first visit to the border as a presidential candidate, and her first since 2021, when she was given the diplomatic mission to address the root causes of migration from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Drawing attention to the border is a political risk: Former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have maligned and mischaracterized Harris’ record on immigration. As vice president, she has at times failed to do herself any favors in this area, and even members of her own party labeled her early efforts as clumsy. She was particularly criticized for an interview three years ago in which she responded to a question about why she had not yet traveled to the border with: ‘I have not been to Europe.’

Now Friday’s visit could offer her a chance to neutralize her vulnerability on immigration, contrast Trump on both policy and tone — and underline that she’s taking a tougher stance on border security than any other Democratic presidential candidate in decades. .

“For a long time, Democrats didn’t want to address an issue they were under attack on,” said Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist who focuses on challenging Latino voters. “So for her to come out and say, ‘No, we can be a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws at the same time,’ is a great strategy.”

Harris’ message is an attempt to balance a harder line on the border with her party’s longtime promises to expand legal paths to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally. Her campaign says she meets most Americans, especially swing and independent voters, where they are.

And she seems to believe she has found a way to deflect Trump’s criticism of her: to blame him for helping broker a bipartisan deal in Congress this year that would have strengthened the path to asylum narrowed and would have provided money for more immigration officers and drug detection technology. smugglers at the border.

On Friday, Harris was scheduled to give a speech in the border community of Douglas, Arizona, accusing Trump of playing politics with immigration and reaffirming her commitment to signing the border legislation. She would also likely note that the number of border crossings has dropped significantly since President Joe Biden signed an executive order in June that prevented migrants from seeking asylum at the border as the number of crossings increased.

At a news conference Thursday in New York, Trump questioned the political strategy of her visit and attacked her handling of the border.

“Why would she go to the border now and play right into her opponent’s hands?” he asked, adding, “She keeps talking about how she supposedly wants to fix the border. We would just ask: Why didn’t she do it four years ago?’

If Harris had been in a different political climate or had different instincts, she might have chosen to say something about immigration by traveling to Springfield, Ohio, where Trump and his allies falsely accused immigrants of stealing and eating their neighbors’ cats and dogs, leading to bomb threats against schools and government buildings. Instead, she will stand at a border that is less chaotic and less overrun by desperate migrants than a year ago, in a critical swing state where the issue is a top priority for many voters.

Voters have generally become less friendly toward immigration. In July, a Gallup poll found that 55% of Americans would like to see less immigration to the United States, compared to 41% the year before. And many believe Trump is better at the border than Harris. In a recent New York Times/Siena College poll of three Sun Belt states, including Arizona, 54% of likely voters said they trusted Trump more on immigration, compared to 43% for Harris.

In a Hispanic neighborhood in Phoenix, several residents said in interviews this week that they supported increased border security and were concerned about crime and gun violence in their community.

Jose Nuñez, 22, said he was leaning toward voting for Trump but also liked Harris’ tone at the border.

“As long as they keep the country safe,” he said.

Now that Harris has taken direct action on immigration, Trump has intensified his attacks on immigrants and promised more restrictive policies than during his first term. He has called for mass deportations and detention camps, positions that Harris has criticized as inhumane. An unbiased analysis found that Trump’s promise to deport millions of immigrants would contribute to a decline in economic growth and boost inflation.

Even some progressive groups unhappy with Harris’ handling of the border have supported her, reasoning that with her as president there would at least be room for negotiation.

This month, more than 80 immigrant rights organizations sent a letter to Biden and Harris opposing the Senate’s revival of the border security bill that Trump helped scuttle. The groups said the proposal would cause “irreparable damage” to the country’s asylum system, lead to more deaths at the border and cause detentions and deportations to skyrocket.

“We will not allow any elected leader to treat immigrants, whether newcomers or those who have lived here for decades, as political pawns,” the letter said.

The effort was led by United We Dream, the largest immigrant rights group led by young activists. And yet the group’s political arm, United We Dream Action, endorsed Harris a few days later.

Bruna Bouhid-Sollod, the senior political director of United We Dream Action, said the group made the decision after discussing the threats it saw if a second Trump presidency poses for immigration, environmental protection, LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights.

“We know they’re not superheroes, and we know they’re not the perfect candidates,” Bouhid-Sollod said of Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota.

During Harris’ time in the Senate, she was a fierce critic of Trump’s immigration policies. When she ran for president in 2019, she highlighted the plight of the young immigrants known as Dreamers who were brought to the United States illegally as children.

This time, she is emphasizing her support for the bipartisan legislation. She has removed TV ads referencing her work prosecuting drug cartels and human traffickers as California’s attorney general, including a new spot released Friday in Arizona and other battleground states. And she has emphasized her endorsements from mayors of border cities.

At the same time, without providing policy details, she has said she wants to encourage immigration and help people already in the United States.

“We must also reform our broken immigration system and protect our Dreamers and understand that we can do both: create an earned path to citizenship and ensure our border is secure,” Harris said this month at a meeting of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus . “We can do both and we must do both.”

Some voters said they appreciated the middle ground she took. June Benally, 64, of Glendale, Arizona, said border security was a top priority for her, but she found Trump’s approach “absolutely heartless.”

Still, Harris’ words have disappointed some progressives.

Erika Andiola, a longtime immigrant rights activist in Arizona, said she expected Harris to be a more outspoken advocate for immigrants at a time when the political conversation about them often focuses on “who is a criminal.”

“What I’ve been trying to convey to the Harris campaign is, yes, part of it is making sure they can win,” Andiola said. “But they are also responsible for helping change the narrative around the immigrant community.”

And Phoenix voter Julian Iribe, 25, said he had hoped Harris would take a “softer” stance on immigrants.

“My father is an immigrant,” Iribe said. ‘I’m all for it: do you want to come here for a better life? Go for it.’

Hearing tougher calls from Harris at the border made him less likely to vote for her in November, he said — and he considered voting for Trump despite the former president’s tougher message.

“It’s the same either way,” Iribe said.