Kamala Harris to visit southern border as immigration remains election liability

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris will visit the U.S.-Mexico border during a campaign stop in the critical battleground state of Arizona on Friday as immigration remains one of her biggest liabilities in the 2024 election.

Harris is set to visit Douglas, Arizona, about 120 miles southeast of Tucson and home to Arizona's second largest port of entry along the southern border.

A Harris campaign aide, who discussed the trip on the condition of anonymity, said Harris will speak about border security during the visit. The aide said Harris will emphasize she is "pushing the toughest bipartisan border security plan in a generation" – and that former President President Donald Trump "killed it for political reasons."

A USA TODAY/Suffolk University national poll this month found likely voters, by a 50%-47% margin, believe Trump, the Republican nominee, would do a better job handling immigration than Harris, the Democratic nominee. A Quinnipiac University poll this week found Trump with a wider 53%-45% edge on immigration.

More: Harris, Trump to take part in dueling Univision town halls of Hispanic voters

More: Biden said he needed Congress' help to 'shut down the border.' Now he's doing it anyway.

Harris has faced criticism from the Trump campaign over her role as Biden's point person overseeing efforts to stem migration at the southern border and address root causes. Trump has pushed for "mass deportations" of undocumented immigrants who are in the country illegally. He's also continually pushed for construction of a border wall.

"After almost four years, Border Czar Kamala Harris has decided, for political reasons, that it’s time for her to go to our broken Southern Border," Trump wrote in a statement on X, formerly Twitter. "What a disgrace that she waited so long, allowing millions of people to enter our Country from prisons, mental institutions, and criminal cells all over the World."

As vice president, Harris previously visited the southern border during a 2021 trip to El Paso, Texas. President Joe Biden visited the southern border in Brownsville, Texas, in February, several months before he dropped out of the 2024 election.

In the 2020 election, Biden narrowly won Arizona, which has 11 electoral votes up for grabs. Trump currently leads Harris in Arizona by 1.6 percentage points, according to the Real Clear Politics average of recent polls.

"We have a broken immigration system, and it needs to be fixed," Harris said in an MSNBC interview Wednesday night.

Looking to flip the script on a historically vulnerable issue for Democrats, Harris has attacked Trump for encouraging Republican senators earlier this year to block bipartisan border legislation backed by the Biden administration that included tough new restrictions for asylum seekers and additional resources for Border Patrol agents.

"Donald Trump got on the phone, called up some folks in Congress, and said kill the bill," Harris said during her Sept. 10 debate with Trump. "And you know why? Because he preferred to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem."

More: After record-breaking years, migrant crossings plunge at US-Mexico border

After the legislation died in Congress, Biden took executive action in June to turn away migrants who do not enter the country through legal ports of entry anytime unlawful crossings hit an average of 2,500 people a day in a given week.

As of August, migrant crossings had declined every month for the past five months after illegal crossings surged to their highest-ever level in 2023, with more than 300,000 irregular crossings in December alone. Early in the administration, Harris famously told migrants, "Do not come," echoing a Border Patrol talking point.

Reach Joey Garrison on X, formerly Twitter, @Joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: VP Harris to make campaign stop at US-Mexico border in Arizona