Harris Turns Border Hawk Ahead of Arizona Rally

Vice President Kamala Harris’s new campaign ad features a deep voice speaking over images of Border Patrol agents, the border wall, and seized pills and guns. It describes Harris, the former attorney general of California, as a “border state prosecutor” who “took on drug cartels and jailed gang members,” and says that Harris, if elected President, will hire thousands more border agents and crack down on fentanyl smuggling and human trafficking.

Polling shows immigration is a weak spot for Harris with voters. Republicans have labeled Harris as Biden’s “border czar”, trying to lay the blame for the country’s immigration struggles at her feet and overstating her diplomatic task as Vice President to reduce the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Republicans have taken aim at Harris’ new running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, who signed a bill in Minnesota allowing people without authorization to be in the country to sign up for driver's licenses.

Rather than shying away from the issue, Harris is punching back. She is playing up her law enforcement record and saying Trump wanted to worsen conditions on the border to help his chances of getting elected when he told Republicans to back out of a deal that would have added Border Patrol agents and immigration officers. “Donald Trump does not care about border security, he only cares about himself,” she said on July 30.

The new ad marks a change in tone for Harris on the border. As a Democratic senator, Harris forcefully led the charge against Trump’s harsh immigration policies. She protested Trump’s Muslim ban on travelers, and when the Trump administration began separating children from parents at the border, she called for the resignation of Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen and said the country needs to “think about starting from scratch” with its immigration enforcement system. 

As Vice President, Harris worked to secure $5.2 billion in investments in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to boost the local economies and fight corruption in an effort to convince people living there not to migrate north to the U.S. At a press conference in Guatemala in 2021, she told migrants thinking of taking the dangerous journey to the U.S., “Don’t come.”

In recent months, Harris has been part of an effort by the Biden administration to take tougher measures on the border to stop illegal migration. In May, Biden moved to restrict the number of asylum cases that will be heard at the border, a rightward shift by his administration designed to slow the high numbers of people being brought to the southern border of the U.S. by smugglers.

That move is already having an impact. Border apprehensions have gone down from a December high of 250,000 to 83,000 apprehended in July.

The new campaign ad finishes with the line: “Fixing the border is tough. So is Kamala Harris.”