Kamala Harris' border security plan promises to increase the number of Border Patrol agents by 1,500, but that would add just one on-duty Border Patrol agent for every five miles of the 1,933-mile southern border. .
The 1,500 additional troops “will mean an additional 300 or 400 personnel at the border.” [per shift] — at most, there would be one more officer every five miles,” responded Ken Cuccinelli, who served as acting Border Bureau chief under President Donald Trump.
Tom Homan, a former executive at President Donald Trump's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, said only about 20% of agents are moving across the border at any given time.
So adding 1,500 additional agents “doesn't move the needle…It's ridiculous,” Homan told Breitbart News. “By the time you put these agents on the northern border, the southern border, and maritime control, the difference will be zero.”
Homan said a much easier solution would be to roll back the border policies set in place by President Donald Trump, adding:
They're going down a rabbit hole here – they can secure their borders with the same number of officials and the same number of immigration agents. All they have to do is change policy.
But the promise to add 1,500 police officers is Harris' most publicized campaign argument on border security.
For example, she touted this figure at a rally on September 19th. presidential debate:
The U.S. Congress, including the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate, introduced a border security bill, which I supported. And this bill would deploy 1,500 more Border Patrol agents to spend time assisting people currently trying to work at the border. That would have stemmed the flow of fentanyl into the United States.
The 1,500 number was a sweetener in the border concession bill pushed by Senate Democrats in January. The bill would significantly increase the flow of economic migrants through several routes through the border, including requiring “catch and release” of migrants who claim to be seeking asylum. “It was an amnesty bill,” Cuccinelli said.
On September 25th, she told CNN:
A few months ago, some of the most conservative members of the U.S. Congress banded together with others to bring 1,500 new border agents to the border to support the hardworking border agents currently working 24 hours a day in the field. proposed a border security bill that would place …If elected president, if the American people support me, I will bring that bill back and sign it into law.
“She's playing games, typical political game-playing,” Homan said.
“It's even worse than that,” Cuccinelli said, adding:
What they're actually doing at the border is [migrant] So when she sends more Border Patrol agents to the border, it just means more human services people to guide them to the border. [migrants] She wants to be paroled and become a citizen.
“She doesn't want 1,500 new agents locking people out. She wants 1,500 new agents helping people move,” Cuccinelli added.
Behind the campaign PR pitch, there is little to no evidence that Harris will reverse pro-immigration policies set by President Joe Biden's powerful border czar Alejandro Mayorkas.
In September, the border commissioner who was impeached by the House of Representatives told an audience in Texas:
Look north to Canada. Canada looks at the needs of the market and says: 700,000 foreign workers are needed to meet domestic labor demand. ” and develop a visa system for the year to address current market conditions. And they say, “We're going to bring in a million people.” And it's market sensitive.
we [in the United States] They are working on numerical limits on worker visas set in 1996. The year is 2024. The world has changed. It is noteworthy how it is possible [elite] agreement that [the visa system] It is broken and there is no consensus on a solution. The country is suffering because of this.
According to multiple media reports, immigration advocates see Harris' “tough” rhetoric as a mere campaign strategy and hope she will support their pro-immigration goals.
“Based on where she has been in the past, we know that her policies will likely be consistent with those of UnidosUS,” said the advocacy director of UnidosUS, a pro-immigration organization formerly named LaRaza. said Carmen Feliciano. politiko In August.
