Harris discusses immigration plans at packed rally on Arizona battlefield

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Vice President Kamala Harris made immigration a centerpiece of her campaign speech Friday night at a packed rally in suburban Phoenix, after omitting the topic at rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin this week.

“We’re going to move forward and address the biggest issues facing our country, including immigration,” Harris told the crowd of supporters. “I was the attorney general of a border state. I went after the transnational gangs, the drug cartels, the human traffickers. I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won.”

During the speech, Harris reiterated her support for legislation that would strengthen border security measures and create a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, building on attacks on former President Donald Trump as ineffective on border security, arguing that he prioritized electoral politics over substantive reform.

“Donald Trump doesn’t want to solve this problem,” she said. “Earlier this year, we had a chance to pass the toughest bipartisan border security bill in decades, and Donald Trump threw the deal out of whack because he thought it would win him an election.”

“We know our immigration system is broken, and we know what it will take to fix it,” Harris told a crowd her campaign estimated at 15,000.

Harris has faced intense scrutiny on immigration from the Trump campaign since he rose to the top of the Democratic ticket. Republicans have largely focused on Harris’ role in the Biden administration.

In 2021, she was tasked with addressing the “root causes” of migration to the U.S. from the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. More recently, her GOP critics have painted a broader portrait of Harris’ responsibilities, suggesting she was tasked with bolstering border security, which did not fall directly under her purview.

Since launching her presidential bid, Harris has broached the issue of immigration during previous visits to Sun Belt states. She attacked Trump for blocking the border security bill at a rally in Georgia last month, and the Harris-Walz campaign has released ads on the topic ahead of her visits to Georgia and Arizona.

“As president, she will hire thousands more border agents,” a narrator says in an ad released Friday by the campaign. “Fixing the border is hard, and so is Kamala Harris.”

In response to Harris and Walz’s visit to Arizona, the Trump campaign said in a statement that the vice president should have visited a border city.

“Border czar Kamala Harris’s pick for vice president is as dangerously liberal as she is,” said Halee Dobbins, Arizona director of the Republican National Committee who also works for Trump’s campaign. “Instead of stopping in Phoenix, Kamala Harris should visit our southern border and see the results of her border massacre with her own eyes.”

The focus on immigration comes as both campaigns are fighting for votes in Arizona. President Joe Biden won the state by about 10,000 votes in 2020, and polls suggest the race between Harris and Trump could be just as close. What’s more, Democrats’ share of the state’s electorate has fallen 3% during the Biden administration, according to the latest voter registration figures from the Arizona secretary of state’s office.

Before Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, took the stage Friday night, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona gave them a resounding endorsement. Kelly, a former astronaut and naval aviator, defended Walz, a fellow veteran, amid Republican attacks on Minnesotans’ military record.

“He served honorably in uniform for decades,” Kelly, who was considered for the vice presidential nomination, said of Walz.

“Tim has brought that experience to everything he’s done since he fought for our military, for veterans and for military families,” Kelly added, speaking with his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords.

Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, a staunch ally of Harris who supported her during her previous presidential bid, spoke in Kelly’s defense, using his comments to smear Kari Lake, his Republican opponent in the Arizona Senate race this fall, and to praise Walz, his former colleague in the House of Representatives.

“We’ve both served on a lot of committees, but one thing I know about him is he always put veterans first,” said Gallego, a Marine who deployed to Iraq.