Kamala Harris visits border,

calls for more

security & immigration reforms

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DOUGLAS — Standing where Republicans have long dared her to go, Vice President Kamala Harris visited Arizona’s border with Mexico on Friday and said it is former President Donald Trump who isn’t serious about border security.

In a major policy speech in Douglas outlining twin priorities on the issue of border security and immigration reform, Harris took Trump to task for the unsolved problems along the border and vowed to provide meaningful leadership on an issue familiar to her.

“I reject the false choice that suggests we must either choose between securing our border or creating a system of immigration that is safe, orderly and humane. We can and we must do both,” Harris said during her 26-minute speech at Cochise College.

Trump “ripped toddlers out of their mother’s arms, put children in cages, and tried to end protections for dreamers. He made the challenges at the border worse, and he is still — and he is still — fanning the flames of fear and division.”

But Harris’ speech in Douglas showed she is willing to take a much tougher stance on border security and illegal immigration along the southern border that is more in line with Republicans and Trump’s stance.

Harris said as president she would take further action to continue a policy implemented by the Biden administration in June to keep the border closed between ports of entry.

Under the Biden administration policy, asylum seekers who cross the border illegally instead of through legal border crossings face quick deportation and are barred from seeking asylum. Previously under the Biden administration, a large majority of asylum seekers who crossed the border illegally between ports of entry were processed and then released into the U.S. while their asylum cases were pending in immigration courts, a process that can take years and allows asylum seekers to put down roots, making it less likely they will ever leave, even if they lose their asylum cases.

Under the previous Biden administration policy, millions of asylum seekers were allowed into the United States.

The Biden administration’s new border policy has received criticism from immigrant rights and advocacy groups who say the policy restricts asylum to people who qualify under law.

Harris said as president she would also crack down on illegal border crossers who she promised to deport quickly and bar from reentering for five years. Repeat crossers would face criminal penalties.

Those policies would mark a return to stricter border policies first put into place under previous Democrat and Republican administrations but for the most part were paused under the Biden administration.

Harris’ policy speech capped an afternoon that began with a briefing on operations and progress on disrupting the flow of fentanyl from U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the entry port in Douglas.

She later turned Trump’s signature political issue as an argument against him.

She blamed Trump for the defeat of a bipartisan bill negotiated earlier this year in part by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., that she supports and would have boosted resources to help manage the border.

He did so, Harris said, to ensure President Joe Biden didn’t get a legislative victory in an election year and showed Americans how much he really cares about the 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.

“But Donald Trump tanked it. He picked up the phone and called some friends in Congress and said stop the bill. Because you see, he prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.”

Harris cited her tenure as California’s attorney general, saying she walked through smugglers’ tunnels who trafficked guns, drugs and people — and prosecuted such criminals.

Republicans assailed Harris ahead of her visit, saying a spike in illegal border crossings came on her watch and after Biden named her his “border czar.”

Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., whose congressional district includes most of Cochise County, knocked Harris’ trip as a “photo opportunity.”

“Vice President Harris’ visit to the border smells like nothing more than a photo opportunity to try and score political points. For three and a half years, the vice president has been in a position to address this crisis but instead she has ignored it,” he said in a statement.

“If she was truly serious about addressing the crisis at the border, she would have done something as the sitting vice president to help border communities that have been calling for help.”

After the Harris event, the Trump campaign denounced her visit as “a photo op and disgusting speech designed as political cover for the invasion she has brought on the American people over the past four years.”

Gina Swoboda, Arizona Republican Party chair, said the state’s residents have lived with “the destructive policies of Kamala Harris’ open-border agenda for nearly four years now.”

“An eleventh hour visit to the scene of the crime by ‘Border Czar’ Kamala is just another desperate attempt to score political points and cover up the absolute havoc she created,” Swoboda said. “Make no mistake, if elected, Kamala Harris would only worsen the crisis that continues to destroy our communities and fuel a drug epidemic, which has stolen thousands of American lives and cost Arizona taxpayers over $58 billion.”

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best media presentation of the speech that I could find

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Seeking a reset on a thorny issue

But the optics of Harris at the Arizona-Mexico border didn’t seem a one-sided admission of failure that Trump and his allies may have wanted.

There were no sizable protests. Illegal entries have waned compared with the record numbers of illegal border crossings earlier in the Biden administration. She urged the border-security bill to do more now than Trump would allow.

During her tour of the border wall, Harris received briefings about efforts to combat traffickers and transnational criminal organizations from Customs and Border Protection officials from the Tucson Sector and Douglas Border Patrol Station.

She visited a portion of the wall that was constructed from 2011 to 2012, a White House official said.

Harris’ first stop was the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Douglas, where tall metal slats are wrapped in barbed wire. 

Harris said that Border Patrol agents have a “tough job” as she walked into the Raul H. Castro Port of Entry.

“They’ve got a tough job. And they need, rightly, support to do their job. And they work long hours, they’re very dedicated. And so I’m here to talk to them about what we can do to support them and thank them for the hard work they do,” Harris told reporters.

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concerning art work at top of post:

https://www.baqueano.co.uk/blog/gauchos-in-argentina

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old timer chronicle editor

spitball fury