COCHISE COUNTY, Ariz. — Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance brought his fiery campaign rhetoric on immigration to the U.S.-Mexico border Thursday as the Trump campaign drubs Vice President Kamala Harris over the Biden administration’s approach to border security.
Sharpening his attacks on Harris from the stump in recent days, Vance, the Republican senator from Ohio, visited an unfinished part of the border wall in Arizona — a stark visual to drive home the campaign’s juxtaposition of Harris’ and Trump’s records.
“It is not hard to secure the southern border. You just have to reimplement some commonsense policies,” Vance said after he received a briefing from border patrol union members, a representative from the sheriff’s department and a local rancher.
Vance, turning to the members of law enforcement flanking him at a lectern, posed a rhetorical question: “Tell me, has Kamala Harris done anything you’ve asked her to do? Has your border czar done anything you’ve asked her to do? The answer is no.”
A central component of former President Donald Trump’s proposed border policy is a pledge to carry out a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants if he is sent back to the White House, after he pledged during his first presidential campaign to build a wall along the southern border.
Vance explained how the policy could withstand legal challenges while he continued his attacks on Harris in an interview after his remarks.
“I think the courts have made it pretty clear that the president has complete control over border policy, and so we’re going to be able to do a lot,” Vance said, referring to cases during Trump’s time as president.
“It’s one of the reasons why ‘border czar’ Kamala Harris has been such a failure here is because she was in charge of coordinating the federal government response,” he added.
“The courts have said the federal government has a lot of power here.”
Harris was tasked in 2021 with addressing the “root causes” of migration to the U.S. from the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Republicans have painted a broader portrait of Harris’ responsibilities with regard to immigration, which did not directly fall under her purview, while also attacking the Biden administration generally over migration and border policy.
Harris has pushed back against her opponents’ characterization of her record on border security, touting her experience prosecuting transnational drug cartels as California’s attorney general before a crowd of ten thousand at a rally in Atlanta this week. She also ripped into Trump for urging Republicans not to support a bipartisan border security bill.
Several local officials who endorsed Harris slammed Trump and Vance along the same lines ahead of Vance’s visit.
“Now that it’s election time, JD Vance and Trump are here to campaign on the border, even though they’re responsible for blocking the most important bill we’ve seen to improve border security,” Bisbee Mayor Ken Budge said on a call organized by the Harris campaign.
Vance’s early-morning trip to the border included a brief tour and discussion with local law enforcement officials, including members of a border patrol union, alongside John Ladd, a local rancher.
As Vance toured the barrier, the Biden administration announced that imprisoned journalist Evan Gershkovich and Marine veteran Paul Whelan were back in U.S. custody after a major prisoner exchange with the Russian government.
“I mean, great that Evan and Paul Whelan are coming home. I think that really what this shows is that a lot of bad guys across the world are worried that Donald Trump is coming back into office,” Vance said, offering his initial reaction to the first reports of the exchange.
Vance, who acknowledged his rocky rollout as Trump’s running mate in an interview this week, also stood by resurfaced comments from 2021 referring to Democratic leaders like Harris as “childless cat ladies.”
“Like I said, what I said then, and what I believe now, is that I think we should be more pro-family,” he said.
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