Harris trots out new ‘tough-on-immigration’ makeover
Vice President Kamala Harris believes 20 minutes spent at the border wall will be enough to end nearly four years border chaos.
Ms. Harris visited the Arizona border on Friday. It was her second visit as vice president, and her first trip in over three years. She said she would take a tough approach against border jumpers, while also promising to be lenient with illegal immigrants.
She said that she would go beyond President Biden’s efforts to tighten the rules on those who try to sneak into the U.S., by closing some asylum loopholes. She promised to use more manpower and technology to detect fentanyl in vehicles crossing the border legally.
She said, “My goal is to make our system orderly and safe.”
She criticized the former president Trump’s border management in a virulent manner.
She said: “He separated families. He ripped toddlers from their mothers’ arms. He put children in cages. And he tried to end the protections for Dreamers.”
Ms. Harris claimed that Mr. Trump did not increase the number Border Patrol agents, immigration judges or work with other countries to try and derail the flow.
She said that in the four years Donald Trump served as president, he didn’t do anything to fix our broken system of immigration.
Congress did not fund Mr. Trump’s request to add 5,000 Border Patrol agents as well as more deportation officials.
Immigrant rights activists also sued in court to stop the changes. Mr. Trump signed agreements with other countries in order to stop bogus asylum requests, but the Biden Administration ended these agreements soon after.
At a press conference organized by the Trump campaign Ms. Harris received a scathing critique from the mothers of Americans killed by illegal immigration and by drugs that crossed the border.
Patty Morin’s daughter Rachel, who was murdered in Maryland last summer, said: “I don’t know how many people Kamala thinks she has to kill before she says, ‘Yes, we do have a problem.’”
Anne Fundner, mother of a child who died from a fentanyl-related overdose, claimed that Ms. Harris had shown “complacency”.
She said, “A photo-op will not bring our children back.”
The border was the start of a West Coast campaigning trip that included celebrity-filled fundraisers and two high-dollar events in California, as well as a Las Vegas rally.
At a San Francisco private fundraiser, Ms. Harris stated that “this race is as close to the finish line as possible.” This is a race with a margin of error.
The price of a ticket ranged from $500 to $250,000, which included a pair of seats and a photo with Ms. Harris.
The event featured a speech by Nancy Pelosi (California Democrat) and a performance by Andra Day of her hit song “Rise Up.”
Tickets cost $500 in Los Angeles. However, donors can pay up to $1 million for 4 tickets, which include a lunch with Harris and a photograph. The fundraiser featured performances by Halle Bailey, Alanis Morissette and other celebrities.
Ms. Harris didn’t repeat her border rhetoric. She focused instead on abortion rights, and told donors why they should be afraid of a second Trump administration.
“Donald Trump is a man who has no seriousness. He has a different strategy and, in countless ways, he’s not serious.” He is not serious. “However, the consequences are very serious if he is put back in the White House,” she said.
On Monday, she will close her West Coast tour in Nevada by hosting an event for small business.
Her border trip revealed the difficult balancing act that she is trying to achieve.
She is trying to win back some public support from a public that is fed up with border chaos. At the same time, she wants to appease the left-wing who has cheered on the influx of migrants.
Her political history places her closer to the left-wingers. She has compared Border Patrol agents and deportation officers with the Ku Klux Klan, and she has called for decriminalizing illegal immigration and reducing deportations.
This is not the answer that voters want right now.
Good news for Democrats: the border numbers are improving since December, which was the worst month ever recorded. In December, Border Patrol agents arrested nearly 250,000 people at the southern border. In August, it was fewer than 60,000.
The “parole programs” of the U.S. administration continue to allow unauthorised migrants into the country. These bypass the normal immigration system, and let people enter who do not have a legal right. The Department of Homeland Security is allowing more than 70,000 people to be paroled each month.
Customs and Border Protection recorded nearly 159,000 encounters in August with undocumented migrants. According to trends, the majority of unauthorized migrants were probably caught and released.
In the final months of Trump’s administration in late 2020, there were about 90,000 illegal immigrants at the border each month. At the time, officials said that few illegal immigrants were arrested and released.
Since 2021, more than 5 million illegal migrants have settled in America. They are straining the local resources and committing serious crimes.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced last week that an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant who was paroled to the U.S. in October 2022 by the Biden Administration has already been arrested four times in Fairfax County in Virginia.
Yohandri Mosquera Rosas’ criminal record included charges for malicious wounding and reckless endangerment, as well as DUI, hit-and run, and numerous gun-related offenses.
Fairfax County Sheriff’s Department, in accordance with its sanctuary policy and to remove Mosquera Rosas from the streets, refused three detainer requests by ICE officers.
Ms. Harris spent about 20 minutes Friday walking along the border wall. The section that Ms. Harris toured was constructed by the Obama Administration to implement the Secure Fence Act signed by President Bush.
The U.S. side of the wall has razor wire on it — something that the Biden Administration criticized back when Texas was stringing it for miles along its border.
Ms. Harris reiterated her commitment to pursue the border bill drafted by senators in earlier this year. The bill would have altered asylum claims and created an authority to expel border migrants similar to Title 42 powers instituted by President Trump during the pandemic emergency in 2020.
“Donald Trump ruined it,” said Ms. Harris. “He called his friends in Congress, and told them to stop the bill.”
The bill was already dead before Donald Trump’s opposition.
House Republicans made it clear that it would not clear their chamber. It couldn’t clear a majority in the Senate and even less could it overcome a filibuster after some Democrats joined Republicans to oppose it.