Harris visits a crucial border state as immigration data sparks investigation: A timeline

Vice President Kamala Harris will head to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona on Friday, her first time visiting the border since a 2021 visit to El Paso and following her campaign haunted by her past on illegal immigration.

Harris has faced regular attacks from her Republican opponent, former President Trumpand the Border Patrol Union, which claims it is weak on border security, an issue that many Republicans see as the vice president’s political Achilles heel.

“After years of not only ignoring the problem but helping to create it, Vice President Kamala is finally heading to the border,” the National Border Patrol Council said in a statement. “This is nothing more than her having to tick the box, but what it really is is a slap in the face to the men and women who put their lives on the line every day, and also a slap in the face to the American audience. Where has she been?”

HARRIS GOES TO THE SOUTHERN BORDER AND WANTS TO REVERSE THE SCRIPT ON IMMIGRATION CRITICISM

This split shows Vice President Kamala Harris and the southern border. (Fox News/Joe Raedle/Getty Images))

Harris’ campaign has pointed to her past as a prosecutor, taking on transnational criminal gangs, and says she is the candidate to secure the border as she supports a bipartisan funding bill.

But Harris has a long history on immigration at the national level.

California Dreamers 2018-2019

As a senator from California, Harris stood to the far left of the Democratic Party on immigration, and in 2018 she urged her Senate colleagues to reject a Trump administration request for more funding for immigration detention beds and Border Patrol agents to point out.

In a letter to senators on the Senate Appropriations Committee in 2018, Harris and other senators called on them to “reject President Trump’s funding request for a costly and ineffective border wall, new Border Patrol agents, and a major increase in U.S. Immigration and Immigration Services . Customs Enforcement (ICE) Personnel and Detention Beds.”

“We urge you to reduce funding for the government reckless immigration enforcement operations that tear families apart and harm our economy.”

Senator Kamala Harris is pictured at a parade in California. (Obtained by Fox Digital.)

HARRIS LEANS ON BORDER SECURITY AND TRUMP ENJOYS THE FIGHT

She also asked Ronald Vitiello, President Trump’s former nominee to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), if he was “aware of the perception” of parallels between ICE and the KKK.

“Are you aware that there is a perception that ICE is managing its power in a way that causes fear and intimidation, especially among immigrants and specifically among immigrants from Mexico and Central America?” she asked again.

In newly revealed footage, Harris is seen singing “Up, up with education, down, down with deportation” at a rally that also included now-disgraced actor Jussie Smollett.

2019 presidential campaign

Harris made a bid for the Democratic nomination for president in 2019. Her campaign included a promise to expand the Democratic Party’s position. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) by executive order, which provides protections for illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as minors.

She said she would eliminate age requirements for applications and use parole to create a “parole in place” program to put these illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship.

She also pledged to protect illegal immigrant parents of U.S. citizens and green card holders from deportation under an executive order. Overall, her plan was predicted to protect more than six million illegal immigrants from deportation.

2021: Vice President ‘Border Czar’

Harris became vice president in 2021 and the administration immediately rolled back some Trump-era initiatives and tried to impose a moratorium on deportations.

Migrant numbers skyrocketed and Biden told reporters in March that Harris would be in charge of tackling the root causes, issues like climate change, poverty and violence that the administration believes are driving migrants north.

It quickly led to Harris being labeled by the media and Republicans as the “border czar.” The White House rejected that title, but has stuck with her ever since, making her the figurehead of the crisis along with DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Summer 2021: The pressure is rising

Following Biden’s order, and with numbers skyrocketing to record highs in the following months, Harris immediately came under pressure to visit the border as the White House said her role was more diplomatic than directly related to the border. Instead, she went to Mexico and Guatemala and had a stern message for migrants that upset immigrant activists.

“Don’t come. Don’t come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our borders,” she said. “If you come to our border, you will be sent back.”

The pressure continued to mount on her to get to the American border.

“You haven’t been to the border,” NBC’s Lester Holt told her, after she claimed she had been to the border.

“And I haven’t been to Europe,” Harris joked.

Immigrants line up at a remote U.S. Border Patrol processing center after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in Lukeville, Arizona, on Dec. 7, 2023. Jesus Enrique Ramirez Cabrera entered the country illegally through Arizona in December 2023, was captured and released in the US, according to federal sources. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Later that month, she headed to the border in El Paso, Texas, where she received a briefing and toured a processing center while meeting with advocates and service providers.

2022: More time needed

Harris would remain largely unseen for the remainder of 2021 and 2022 root cause strategyalthough a private sector initiative to attract investment to address these root causes would continue.

In June 2022, she traveled to the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles and met with other leaders to discuss ways to address the crisis. At that summit, she announced that $3.2 billion in commitments from private sector companies had been secured.

She also came under fire for declaring the border was secure despite the ongoing crisis and mass releases at home.

“The border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system, especially the last four years before we came here, and that needs to be fixed,” Harris told NBC.

2023: Even more records broken

Harris made few appearances in 2023 on the border crisis, though her private investment strategy continued to attract additional corporate commitments.

But the crisis did not stay out of the news and 2023 broke new records for huge numbers of migrant encounters and some chaotic scenes at the border.

Fiscal year 2023 broke the record for encounters with more than 2.4 million, while December saw nearly 250,000 encounters in one month.

2024: Support for bipartisan bill, presidential bid

As the White House continued to reject the “border czar” narrative, Harris threw her support behind a bipartisan deal in the Senate to provide more funding at the border and reduce migrant crossings when they reach a certain level.

She also supported a number of President Biden’s executive orders that would implement a cap on asylum and efforts to provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who are spouses of U.S. citizens.

She has tried to portray herself as tougher on the border than former President Trump.

Now, with a stop in Douglas, Arizona, she wants to show she is better prepared than Trump to tackle the combustible issue of immigration and what Republicans have highlighted as the crisis at the southern border.

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“We need a comprehensive plan,” Harris said in an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday. “That includes what we need to do to not only strengthen our border, but also deal with the fact that we also need to create pathways for people to earn citizenship.”

In conjunction with the border stop, the Harris campaign is launching a new ad that will play in Arizona and other battleground states, highlighting her past border efforts and plans.

“She put cartel members and drug traffickers behind bars and she will secure our border,” the narrator says in the commercial.

Paul Steinhauser of Fox News contributed to this report.

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