At Las Vegas rally, Kamala Harris vows to “walk the walk” in waging war on immigrants

Speaking to some 12,000 people at a campaign rally in Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday night, Vice President Kamala Harris chastised ex-President Donald Trump for blocking a far-right Senate border bill previously negotiated by Senators James Lankford (Republican-Oklahoma), Kyrsten Sinema (Independent-Arizona) and Chris Murphy (Democrat-Connecticut).

“Earlier this year we had a chance to pass the toughest bipartisan border security bill in decades,” Harris said. “But Donald Trump tanked the bill because he thought it would help him win an election.

“Well, when I am president I will sign that bill into law,” she declared.

The bill Harris pledged to sign into law devotes nearly $20 billion to the border security apparatus, including an infusion of nearly $8 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with over $3 billion of that amount earmarked for the expansion of detention facilities to accommodate up to 50,000 people. The bill also allocates nearly $7 billion for Customs and Border Protection, including $723 million to hire more Border Patrol agents.

While providing no “pathway to citizenship” for the over 2.5 million people brought here as children, known as Dreamers, the bill gives the president new legal authority to shut down ports of entry if an average of 5,000 migrants cross every day for a week, or if the number reaches 8,500 in a single day. Encouraging child separation and trafficking, unaccompanied minors from countries other than Canada and Mexico don’t count towards that total.

The bill was endorsed earlier this year by Trump-aligned border police union head Brandon Judd, the US Chamber of Commerce and the Wall Street Journal. The Journal editorial board dubbed it a “Border Security Bill Worth Passing,” characterizing it as the “most restrictive migrant legislation in decades.”

In her Vegas speech, Harris attacked Trump and the Republicans from the right, saying:

We will address the issue of immigration. We know our immigration system is broken. And we know what it takes to fix it, comprehensive reform that includes, yes strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship.