Kamala Harris highlighted her tough-on-migration stance during a long-anticipated trip Friday to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, aiming to cover off a political vulnerability and rebut Donald Trump’s core campaign message that Democrats are soft on immigration enforcement.
“The United States is a sovereign nation, and I believe we have a duty to set rules at our border and to enforce them, and I take that responsibility very seriously,” Harris said in Douglas, Arizona, Friday evening after visiting the border. Her message reflects a broader turn on immigration that reflects a changing national mood, foreshadowing a new landscape in the coming years where imposing tougher border controls will likely be the focal point regardless of which party wins the 2024 elections.
“The priorities have to be getting the border under control. The numbers are very low right now, but you can’t guarantee that that will remain the case. You also can’t be assured that the courts won’t ultimately strike down the executive orders that the administration has taken,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., the party’s chief negotiator on a major border security package earlier this year, told NBC News in an interview. “I think our ability to get other reforms into law is made easier by putting a priority on border security.”
Harris’ pitch completes a turnaround from 2019, when she took more left-leaning positions as a presidential candidate including by backing a call to reduces illegal border crossings to a civil — not criminal — violation and by objecting to Obama-era deportations.
On Friday, Harris highlighted a different side of herself: the tough prosecutor who took on international gangs and organized crime as the top law enforcement officer of California.
Harris’ pitch completes a turnaround from 2019, when she took more left-leaning positions as a presidential candidate including by backing a call to reduces illegal border crossings to a civil — not criminal — violation and by objecting to Obama-era deportations.
“The issue of border security is not a new issue to me. I was attorney general of a border state for two terms. I saw the violence and chaos that transnational criminal organizations cause and the heartbreak and loss from the spread of their illicit drugs, “Harris said, adding that going after such gangs would be a priority if she is elected president.
She also emphasized that the U.S. “You have been enriched by generations of people who have come from every corner of the world to contribute to our country and to become part of the American story. And so we must reform our immigration system to ensure that it works in an orderly way, that it is humane and that makes our country stronger.”
Harris’ immediate goal is to signal to moderate voters that she will be an aggressive enforcer of the law and keep migration in check.
After struggling on the issue, Democrats have finally found what they believe is a winning message: Reminding voters that former President Trump pressured Republicans to kill a bipartisan bill that would impose tougher border controls and make it harder to get asylum.
Harris said that, unlike Trump, she would embrace bipartisan solutions “because I know, transnational gangs coming across the border, trafficking in guns, drugs and human beings could care less who someone voted for in the last election.”
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