Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance visited the U.S.-Mexico border on Thursday, pointing fingers at Vice President Kamala Harris for issues related to illegal crossings, migrant crime, and rising fentanyl deaths. This trip aligns with a broader GOP strategy aimed at linking Harris to the Biden administration’s perceived failures on immigration policy.
In Arizona, Vance held a brief chat with reporters alongside Cochise County Sheriff Bob Watkins and former Border Patrol leaders. The junior senator from Ohio, currently working to regain momentum on the campaign trail, seized the opportunity to criticize Harris’s record since her nomination.
“Witnessing the disastrous effects of Kamala Harris’s policies at the southern border is shocking,” Vance remarked, standing near an incomplete border wall. He asserted that the wall’s delays are a direct result of the current administration’s actions.
“Harris made promises upon taking office, and those promises led to an open southern border,” he stated. Vance condemned what he termed “terrible” policies, advocating instead for a return to Trump-era strategies like the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy and Title 42, which restricts border crossings.
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Vance expressed that the ongoing influx of migrants is overwhelming local resources, calling it “unbelievable” how conditions at the border have deteriorated under Harris’s leadership. “If people believe they won’t be deported, it creates an effective open border,” Vance explained, pledging that he and Trump would counteract this approach.
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The conversation also touched on fentanyl, with Vance sharing a personal connection to the opioid crisis through his mother’s battle with addiction, as detailed in his book, Hillbilly Elegy. Sheriff Watkins highlighted that a significant portion of fentanyl seizures happens close to their location, calling it a “border crisis.”
Vance stated that families affected by fentanyl should hold Harris accountable, even though border security does not fall directly under her responsibilities as “border czar,” a title she received for addressing root causes of migration from Central America.
Assuring voters, Vance and Trump promised to strengthen the border and equip federal law enforcement with necessary resources. Meanwhile, reports indicate that Trump previously deterred a bipartisan bill aimed at enhancing border security.
The Harris campaign countered these accusations, claiming she is committed to reintroducing the stalled bill, which emphasizes increasing border patrol agents and implementing technology to combat fentanyl trafficking. Recent months have seen a decline in encounters at the southwest border, partly due to new asylum restrictions introduced by President Biden in June.