American Election 2024

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Harris tries to turn the tables on Trump by embracing the border as a key issue​

By Eric Bradner, CNN
September 28, 2024

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris visits the US-Mexico border with US Border Patrol Tucson Sector Chief John Modlin, right, in Douglas, Arizona, on September 27, 2024.
Rebecca Noble/AFP/Getty Images CNN —

Vice President Kamala Harris made an aggressive move to cut into Donald Trump’s polling lead on immigration, traveling to the southern border for the first time as the Democratic nominee on Friday to lay out her plans to tackle what she described as a problem that has languished for decades.

Harris, during her trip to the key swing state of Arizona, lambasted Trump for his role earlier this year in tanking a border security bill that was the product of months of bipartisan negotiations.

It was one of Harris’ more specific policy speeches since becoming the Democratic nominee, attempting to use her past as California’s attorney general to prove that she has what it takes to attack Trump on his signature issue.

“It was the strongest border security bill we have seen in decades. It was endorsed by the Border Patrol union. And it should be in effect today, producing results in real time, right now, for our country,” she said at a rally in Douglas, a town on the US-Mexico border.

“But Donald Trump tanked it. He picked up the phone and called some friends in Congress and said, ‘Stop the bill,’” she said. “He prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem. And the American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games and their personal political future.”

The former president responded to Harris’ border trip by amping up his own rhetoric on immigration. Highlighting violent crimes committed by undocumented immigrants, Trump told a crowd in Walker, Michigan, that Harris “delivered these horrors.”

“She unleashed these atrocities, and blood is on her hands at a level that, probably, nobody’s ever seen in this country,” he said.

Trump also falsely again accused Democrats of letting people enter the country illegally because “they want the votes.” Non-citizens cannot vote in US elections — a reality ignored by Trump, who for years has lied about widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

The Democratic offensive on immigration and border security is an attempt to cut into one of Trump’s clearest-cut political advantages. A CNN poll conducted by SSRS released this week found the former president is trusted by 49% of likely voters to handle immigration, while Harris is trusted by 35%.

Harris on Friday also laid out proposals to strengthen restrictions that have largely barred migrants from seeking asylum in the United States. And she said she would seek paths to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought into the United States as children.

“They are American in every way. But still, they do not have an earned pathway to citizenship. And this problem has gone unsolved at this point now for decades,” Harris said.