The crisis at the southern border has become a centerpiece of the 2024 presidential campaign, with Ohio Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance blasting Vice President Kamala Harris’ handling of the crisis at the border on Thursday – just days before she can campaign. The diva attempted to draw comparisons between herself and former President Trump on hot-button issues.
“Unless you see it with your own eyes, it’s hard to believe how bad the policies of the Kamala Harris administration are on the southern border,” Vance said in Cochise County, Arizona. “They started governing and Kamala Harris came into office. … They stopped deportations on day one.”
Vance tapped into Republican arguments about how the Biden administration could end Trump-era policies they viewed as successful and wreak havoc at the border.
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Ohio Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance speaks to the media during a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border in Hereford, Arizona, on Thursday. (Grace Trejo/Arizona Daily Star via AP)
“We see the border wall sitting right here, ready to be completed behind us. But that can’t happen because of the Kamala Harris administration. They resumed catch and release and stopped staying in Mexico,” he continued said. “As a result, all asylum seekers who come to our border can now be released into our country because they will not be forced to remain in Mexico while we adjudicate their asylum claims.”
Vance also called securing the border “not rocket science.”
“You just have to reimplement some common sense policies. You have to reimplement Remain in Mexico. You have to stop catch and release,” he said. “You must force these asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while their claims are adjudicated. You must complete the border wall and reintroduce deportations.”
Prior to Vance’s border visit, former President Trump also said he would visit the border before November, possibly multiple times.
Republicans have lashed out at Harris on the southern border, not just because of the crisis there but also because of Harris’ leadership on root causes in international diplomacy, which has led to her being dubbed a “border czar” by the media and Republicans .
But Harris fired back, highlighting the support of a group of mayors of Arizona border towns who “praised her long record of fighting to secure the border and repair our broken immigration system, including her work as a California prosecutor pursuing smuggled weapons and drugs.” The work of transnational gangs.” Overall, the White House has adopted tough border policies that have reduced the number of border crossings to their lowest level in years. “
This week, Harris released an ad contrasting her support for a bipartisan border package unveiled by the Senate that would increase border funding and impose some restrictions on entry into the United States. to resolve the border crisis, but Trump and his allies eliminated it.
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The film says Harris “helped lead record-low border crossing numbers and has dedicated her entire career to keeping our communities safe” and accuses Trump of “siding with drug dealers and cartels to stop the most powerful and Fair Reforms to Securing the Border” Decades Later. “
The Trump campaign immediately mocked the video.
The Trump campaign said: “Every claim in Kamala’s border ad is a flat-out lie. The fact is that President Trump handed the most secure border in history to the Biden-Harris administration, and they Opening the border by erasing every one of his good policies: “As border czar, Kamala Harris oversaw the worst immigration crisis in American history, enabling drug cartels to smuggle deadly fentanyl into us. borders and allow more than 11 million illegal criminals and terrorists from around the world to enter our country.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Atlanta on Tuesday. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
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Harris criticized Trump at a rally in Atlanta earlier this week, saying he “keeps talking about big things like protecting our border, but he doesn’t walk the walk.”
She accused the former president of “vetoing a bipartisan agreement because he thought it would help him win the election” and promised that “as president, I will roll back the border security bill that Donald Trump vetoed.”
After Vance’s speech on Thursday, Harris’ campaign took aim at Trump and Vance.
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“Donald Trump and J.D. Vance offer Americans no solutions – only insults, chaos and fear. They don’t want our borders to be secure, they want to sow fear. They don’t want to help working families and their Plan 2025 agenda It will only hurt them,” said presidential spokesman James Singer Harris.
Fox News’ Greg Norman and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
