Vice President Kamala Harris' visit to battleground border states on Friday has been criticized by House Republicans whose districts represent the front lines of the current immigration crisis.
At issue is Harris' campaign suspension in the border town of Douglas in the key state of Arizona, less than six weeks before voters head to the polls to choose the next president.
“I have consistently been committed to working with anyone on either side of the aisle to address the border crisis,” Arizona Republican Rep. Juan Siscomani told Fox News Digital. spoke. “But Vice President Harris' border visit seems like little more than a photo opportunity to score political points.”
Siscomani is just one of several Republicans from border districts who have accused Harris of focusing on optics over results. They have long accused the Biden administration of record numbers of illegal border crossings since the Democratic administration took office, and Harris' handling of the border has become one of the Republicans' most important political bludgeons against her. .
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Representatives Darrell Issa and Juan Siscomani were among those who criticized Vice President Harris' border visit. (Getty Images)
“For three and a half years, the vice president was in a position to address this crisis, but instead he ignored it,” Siscomani said. “As a result, border communities, like mine, are suffering from her lack of leadership.”
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Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), whose San Diego-based district includes about 160 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, suggested the border crisis is “a feature, not a flaw” of the administration's policies. .
“What happened then? The worst drug crisis in American history, unprecedented trafficking of women and girls, and 10 million illegal aliens allowed to enter and stay,” Issa said. “Kamala owes America an apology, not a photo shoot.”
Rep. Monica Dela Cruz (R-Texas) told Fox News Digital that she believes Harris' visit was purely a political game.
“This last-minute trip is no coincidence as polls show Harris is struggling in Arizona,” she said. “Despite the photo shoot, the fact still remains [that] On Harris' watch, we are facing an unprecedented border crisis, a stark contrast to the secure border we had under President Trump. ”
Rep. Monica de la Cruz, whose district also runs along the border, similarly accused Harris of staging a photo opportunity. (Getty Images)
The 2024 election saw a paradigm shift in how Democrats debate border issues. Left-leaning candidates, including Harris, who need to appeal to moderate, independent voters, have emphasized the need for border security.
Democrats also point to President Biden's executive actions on asylum that preceded a decline in the number of illegal border crossings between ports of entry in recent months. Encounters at the southwest border in July were lower than in the final month of former President Trump's term.
However, on an annual basis, illegal border crossings have increased during Biden's tenure, with a record 2.2 million border encounters in 2022.
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Border crossings also spiked in 2020 and 2021, when Biden took office and rolled back some of Trump's more restrictive border policies.
But instead of uniting the two parties on the issue, Democrats and Republicans diverged on the best way to approach that goal.
Harris has frequently touted her support for the border security plan, which was rejected by Republican lawmakers earlier this year, but which does not go far enough to secure the border and codifies policies that Republicans oppose. claimed to be a thing. Democrats have accused Republicans of killing the bill over former President Trump's opposition.
Asked for comment on the Republican attacks on Harris' visit, a campaign spokesperson pointed Fox News Digital to comments by a Harris campaign official that foreshadowed the vice president's remarks on Friday.
Harris is expected to press her opponent, former President Trump, during her border visit. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)
He is expected to advocate for stronger border security, accusing President Trump of obstructing progress on border security for political gain.
The Harris campaign also pointed to a statement made by Harris to Fox News Digital at the time of her visit that said she “will outline a plan to deliver real solutions to border security and the fentanyl crisis.” did. Unlike Donald Trump, who did nothing to fix our broken immigration system, fixed things, and worse, undermined a bipartisan border solution in order to play politics. ”
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Harris has not visited the border since 2021, but this visit comes shortly after she was given the unofficial title of “border czar” for spearheading solutions to the root causes of mass immigration.
In its own statement about Harris' visit on Friday, the Trump campaign said: “The past 44 months that Kamala has provoked, even as she made a last-minute border visit 39 days before the election and made empty calls for increased security. “This does not rewrite the chaos, crime and bloodshed that ensued.” Her open borders policy. ”
