Democrats take on GOP on border security. It’s a tough call. – San Diego Union-Tribune

It seems like a gamble, but Democrats may have no choice.

For years, former President Donald Trump and Republicans have brutalized Democrats on border security, particularly during record immigration and the resulting chaos of the Biden administration. That beating will continue.

Many Democrats are unhappy with the simple attempt to deflect the attacks.

As the election approaches, Democrats are taking an offensive stance that began months ago, running ads accusing Trump and Republican members of Congress of making the situation at the border worse by blocking a border security bill.

The measure, which has bipartisan support and has been endorsed by the Border Patrol union, would limit the supply of asylum and cost millions of dollars to pay for equipment, surveillance technology and thousands of border and asylum workers.

Meanwhile, Democrats such as Rep. Mike Levin, who represents coastal northern San Diego County, are highlighting President Joe Biden’s executive action to bolster border security and limit asylum claims, which has stabilized the situation along the border and limited migration into the United States.

In her speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke about pursuing strong border security, including attention to immigrants already in the United States.

“We can create an earned path to citizenship and secure our borders,” Harris said.

Not surprisingly, Republicans show no signs of budging here, with polls suggesting they still have a clear advantage. On Thursday, Trump visited the border in Arizona and again criticized Harris over security.

“The choice is simple,” Trump said. “Kamala’s mass amnesty of criminals, or President Trump’s mass deportation of criminals.”

In an effort to counter such attacks, Harris’ campaign released an ad earlier this month saying that the former California attorney general “took on drug cartels and jailed gang members for smuggling guns and drugs across the border. As vice president, she supported the toughest border enforcement law in decades.”

Border security was a prominent topic at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

“Let’s be clear, the border is broken,” Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., told the crowd Wednesday, adding that Harris “gladly embraces the challenge of working across party lines, securing our borders and treating people like people.”

Suozzi won a Republican-held district this year while calling for tougher border and asylum laws. Still, it’s unclear how, if, tougher border negotiations will change the balance for Democrats in the presidential race and congressional battlegrounds.

A recent Fox News poll suggests Harris has a lot of ground to make up. The poll, conducted Aug. 9-12, found Harris and Trump nearly evenly matched in a national showdown, with the former president ahead by 1 percentage point.

But Trump had a 19-point lead on border security. On immigration, Trump had a 14-point lead. That’s bigger than the 11-point lead he had over Biden on immigration in a July Fox poll.

Trump and Republicans have branded Harris as Biden’s “border czar” — as have some media outlets — insisting she bears significant responsibility for how the surge in border crossings has been managed in the past.

Harris’s defenders said that was wrong and that she was never given the responsibility to secure the border. Instead, she was tasked with addressing the “root causes” of Central American immigration.

Still, Democrats are seeing some light here. Media reports have run Democratic ads in battleground districts raising the issue, claiming that the Republican majority in the House has no solutions, while Democrats have supported border security improvements — namely, the bipartisan bill.

Some ads blame loyal members for not getting the job done.

“Ken Calvert has had 32 years to secure the border,” Democrat Will Rollins says in an ad criticizing the Republican incumbent he is challenging in California’s 41st congressional district.

Levin was among Democrats who urged Biden in a May letter to take tougher measures at the border. On Aug. 13, Levin said the Border Patrol in the San Diego area had not released any migrants onto the streets for six consecutive weeks, and he credited the president’s executive order. Previously, such releases had caused confusion among migrants and advocates trying to help them, while also provoking public outrage.

“While this is a positive step forward, there is still much work to be done to ensure our immigration system is efficient and effective,” Levin said in a statement. “Executive action is not permanent. Congress must work together to pass a bipartisan border security and immigration bill.”

“Unfortunately, the bipartisan Senate border security bill negotiated earlier this year, the strongest border legislation in years, was killed by former President Trump and his congressional allies, who opposed the legislation to score political points and play politics with border security.”

According to Levin’s Republican challenger, businessman Matt Gunderson, it is the Democrats who are playing politics.

According to the Los Angeles Times, he said the Biden administration has dismantled Trump’s border policies to “take a step back” as the election approaches.

“No recent ‘come to Jesus’ perspective is going to change what they’ve been doing for the last three and a half years,” he said.

“Right now, the biggest problem for this county is the border,” Gunderson said in June. “The San Diego County border has become the epicenter of border crossings. Until we secure the border, all of our other problems, in terms of public safety and public health and inflation, take a back seat.”

Since then, Harris’s sudden rise has given Democrats momentum. Whatever the political impact of going on the offensive on border security, it appears to have further energized Democrats, and that can’t hurt.

What they said

Ron Nehring (@RonNehring), former chairman of the Republican parties in California and San Diego, on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who dropped his independent candidacy for president on Friday and endorsed Trump.

“No Republican should come within a thousand miles of this weirdo.”

Originally published: August 25, 2024 at 5:00 AM