Kamala Harris Pledges To Bring Back Bipartisan Border Security Bill

Vice President Kamala Harris pledged to revive President Joe Biden’s failed bipartisan border security bill as she accepted the party nomination for the top job at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago.
Harris addressed immigration policy and border security at the DNC, a key election issue that Democrats are perceived to be weak on. A recent poll suggests Americans trust Donald Trump more than Harris on matters concerning immigration policy.
During her keynote speech, Harris spoke about the flagship bill the Biden administration supported to address illegal immigration.
“Joe and I brought together Democrats and conservative Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades; the border patrol endorsed it,” Harris said.
“But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign,” she said. “So, he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal.”
The legislation stalled in the Senate after Trump ordered allies not to support it.
“I refuse to play politics with our security,” Harris added and pledged to “bring back the bipartisan border security bill that [Trump] killed and sign it into law.”
“I know we can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system; we can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border.”
RNC Chairman Michael Whatley told Newsweek: “After staging a coup to take the nomination from Joe Biden just weeks ago, Kamala Harris took to the stage at the DNC to share her dangerously liberal agenda with the Democrats gathered to coronate her in Chicago. The Border Czar has allowed 10 million illegal immigrants, along with rampant migrant crime and a fentanyl crisis.
“What Americans will not hear from Kamala is any attempt to unify our country, restore our border, rebuild our economy, or ensure that America is strong enough to protect our interests at home and abroad—the issues that every American family is concerned about. America cannot afford another four years of Kamala’s weak, failed, and dishonest agenda.”
Republicans have labeled the vice president as Biden’s “border czar,” though she was never officially given that title. Biden assigned her the task of addressing the “root causes” of migration to the U.S. from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
Meanwhile, Trump visited the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona on Thursday to speak about border security. The former president brought along mothers of children killed in cases where the suspects were immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
“We’re losing very innocent people to heinous crimes,” said Alexis Nungaray, the mother of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, who was killed in June by two Venezuelan nationals who entered the country illegally.
The GOP nominee has regularly cited migrant crime and the case of Jocelyn Nungaray to highlight the Biden-Harris administration’s lack of toughness on immigration.
However, Trump has faced withering critiques over his behind-the-scenes role in killing the border security bill.
Javier Salazar, the sheriff of Bexar County in Texas, described Trump as “a self-serving man” during his speech on Wednesday at the DNC.
“When he killed the border bill, he just made our jobs harder,” Salazar said.
Democrats and Republicans have been in a long-running standoff over the U.S.-Mexico border after the bill failed to pass.
GOP lawmakers spearheaded by Trump have promised to carry out mass deportations of illegal immigrants.
The Democratic platform highlights that illegal immigration fell after Biden’s sweeping executive order in June which capped asylum entries.
Encounters at the Southwest border were lower in July of this year than in July 2023, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection: 104,116 encounters compared to 183,479. Encounters have also dropped since May this year, the month before Biden’s executive order, when the figure was 170,718, according to the CBP.
Do you have a story Newsweek should be covering? Do you have any questions about this story? Contact [email protected]