Kamala Harris turns border hawk for Arizona rally

Vice President Kamala Harris’ new campaign ad features a deep voiceover speaking over images of Border Patrol agents, the border wall and seized pills and guns. It describes Harris, the former California attorney general, as a “border state prosecutor” who “took on drug cartels and captured gang members,” and says that if elected, Harris would hire thousands of additional border agents and crack down on fentanyl smuggling and human trafficking.

Polls show immigration is a soft spot for Harris with voters. Republicans have branded Harris as Biden’s “border czar,” attempting to shift the blame for the country’s immigration problems to her and exaggerating her diplomatic role as vice president to address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Republicans have taken aim at Harris’ new running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, who signed a Minnesota bill that allows people without authorization to be in the country to apply for driver’s licenses.

Instead of avoiding the issue, Harris has hit back. Citing her law enforcement record, she says Trump wanted to worsen conditions at the border to boost his chances of election when he told Republicans to back out of a deal that would have added Border Patrol agents and immigration officials. “Donald Trump doesn’t care about border security, he only cares about himself,” she said on July 30.

The new ad marks a change in tone for Harris at the border. As a Democratic senator, Harris led a forceful charge against Trump’s hardline immigration policies. She railed against Trump’s Muslim ban on travelers, and when the Trump administration began separating children from their parents at the border, she called for the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and said the country “needs to think about starting over” with its immigration enforcement system.

As vice president, Harris worked to secure $5.2 billion in investment in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to boost local economies and combat corruption, in an effort to convince people living there not to migrate north to the U.S. At a 2021 news conference in Guatemala, she told migrants considering the perilous journey to the U.S.: “Don’t come.”

In recent months, Harris has championed a Biden administration effort to take tougher measures at the border to stem illegal migration. In May, Biden moved to limit the number of asylum cases processed at the border, a rightward shift by his administration aimed at slowing the surge in people being brought to the U.S. southern border by smugglers.

The move is already having an effect, with the number of border apprehensions falling from a peak of 250,000 in December to 83,000 in July.

The new campaign ad ends with the line: “Fixing the border is hard. So is Kamala Harris.”