Kamala Harris visits southern border for first time as nominee

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris is set to make her first visit to the southern border since entering the 2024 race, as she aims to attack former President Donald Trump on an issue central to his campaign.

Harris will visit a border city in Arizona on Friday, her campaign announced Wednesday. A campaign aide said she will highlight Trump’s role in derailing a bipartisan border deal on Capitol Hill this year.

Immigration and border security are a weak spot for Harris. Polls often show her trailing Trump on this issue, and Trump has repeatedly criticized her record in the Biden administration.

Her campaign wants to highlight her previous work in this area while simultaneously portraying Trump as “dangerous.”

“As a former attorney general of a border state, she took on transnational gangs and criminal organizations that smuggle drugs, weapons and people. She has long believed that we need an immigration system that is safe, fair, orderly and humane — a stark contrast to the divisive and dangerous policies of Donald Trump,” a Harris campaign official said in a statement about the visit.

Harris will discuss “how she is pushing through the strongest bipartisan border security plan in a generation,” the aide said.

When Harris discusses border and immigration issues during her campaign, she often points to how Trump pressured Republicans in Congress to block a bipartisan border security bill that would have addressed many of the issues he criticizes.

The measure would allow the White House to close the border if too many migrants try to cross, and would raise the standard for “credible fear” in asylum applications, leading to more funding for Border Patrol and deportation flights.

“Donald Trump got wind of the bill, realized it would solve an issue that he was campaigning on, and said they should kill the bill, not put it up for a vote,” Harris said in an interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle on Wednesday. “He killed a bill that would have been a solution, because he wanted to campaign on an issue, rather than solve an issue.”

Harris has promised that if elected, she will revive and sign the bill.

Trump has made the border and immigration a central issue in his presidential bid, visiting the southern border several times during the campaign. He also has a history of using derogatory language to describe migrants, calling them “animals,” comparing them to the fictional cannibal Hannibal Lecter and making baseless claims that they take “black jobs.” In recent days, he has spread lies about Haitian immigrants who are legally resident in Springfield, Ohio.

Trump has characterized Harris in speeches as weak on the border. He said Tuesday on Truth Social that Harris went to the border “for political reasons.”

“She is trying to fool the public by pretending she has done a good job at the border when in reality she has destroyed the foundation of our country,” he wrote in a post that also misrepresented the number of migrants entering the country.

Friday’s visit to Douglas, Arizona, is Harris’ second trip to the southern border during her term as vice president. Her first trip was to El Paso, Texas, in June 2021.

An NBC News poll conducted this month found that 54% of registered voters think Trump would do a better job of securing the border and controlling immigration. 33% said the same about Harris.

At the same time, the poll found that 57% of registered voters think Harris would treat immigrants better and protect immigrant rights, while 29% said Trump would be better.

NBC News reported in August that shelters along the southern border and in some major cities have seen a sharp drop in migrants seeking shelter in recent months. In June, Border Patrol agents apprehended the lowest monthly number of migrants crossing the southern border since President Joe Biden took office.