WASHINGTON — Donald Trump is going on offense by painting new presidential campaign rival Kamala Harris as the face of a chaotic U.S. border, seizing on an assignment President Joe Biden gave her in 2021 to work with Central American countries to tackle the “root causes” of migration.
Trump labeled the vice president the “border czar” no fewer than six times in a fiery rally speech Thursday in North Carolina, centering his criticism of her on the overwhelmed asylum system. “Under border czar Harris, illegal aliens are pouring in by the millions and millions and millions,” Trump said, drawing jeers from the crowd as he called Harris “crazy.”
The term, which Republicans has used widely to criticize Harris, traces back to March 2021, when Harris was charged with addressing the surge of Central American migrants, who came mostly from the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where violence and organized crime have driven millions to flee the region. The terms “czar” and “border czar” did not appear in White House materials, but they caught on among critics.
Days later, Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, a Republican, made one of the first prominent references to it in a letter to the White House asking Harris “to visit the border and see the crisis for yourself.”
“Now that President Biden has named you Border Czar in charge of the administration’s response, I want to express to you the threats and challenges caused by this administration’s open border policies,” he wrote in a letter.
Harris’ assignment was misunderstood: It was a diplomatic task to devise a regional strategy to mitigate the need for migration, not a security task to oversee domestic border enforcement.
The White House immediately sought to clarify that Harris’ mandate was not “the border” and that it was narrowly focused on the forces driving migrants out of the Northern Triangle. But with a crisis unfolding that was fueled by those migrants, the title stuck.
Harris runs on ‘freedom,’ says little about migration
More than three years later, Harris is the de facto Democratic presidential nominee after Biden’s late decision to withdraw from the race, and her still-nascent campaign has not focused on immigration or border security. And her public work on addressing the root causes of migration has largely evaporated, an NBC News analysis showed, though the White House said she has helped make key investments in Central America and continues to lead on the issue.
Harris has said little about immigration in recent speeches. Her launch video Thursday presents her as the candidate of “freedom,” highlighting issues like reproductive rights, health care access and gun violence — without mentioning immigration.
Migration patterns have changed, too. The recent surge of border crossings has been driven by immigrants from Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and other countries outside the Northern Triangle.
Still, the issue of border security presents political pitfalls for Harris and the Democratic Party, as it motivates conservatives. Surveys have found voters trust the GOP more to handle it. Biden and Democrats in Congress recognized that, crafting a bipartisan border bill with Republicans to address immigration at the southern border, but Trump and his allies in Congress killed it.
Trump campaign senior adviser Danielle Alvarez accused the Harris campaign of “scrambling to rewrite history on her failures.”
“Border Czar Harris owns the bloodbath at the southern border, including the rape, murder, and brutal assault of women like Rachel Morin and Laken Riley. Try as they might, Kamala and her allies can’t change reality: she is responsible for the flood of migrant crime and deadly fentanyl into our country, and Americans will hold her accountable when they vote for President Trump in November,” Alvarez said in a statement.
A memo Monday from the GOP Senate campaign arm provides talking points to candidates to go after Harris, saying: “Kamala Harris is Joe Biden’s border czar and the architect of his biggest failure.”
Harris campaign goes after Trump on ‘ripping mothers from their children’
Harris campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz noted that Trump torpedoed the Senate border security deal the Biden-Harris White House backed this year. Trump successfully pushed Republicans to vote down the compromise they reached with Democrats as he campaigns on the issue.
“The only ‘plan’ Donald Trump has to secure our border is ripping mothers from their children and a few xenophobic placards at the Republican National Convention. He tanked the bipartisan border security deal because, for Donald Trump, this has never been about solutions just running on a problem,” Munoz said in a statement. “Like everything with Donald Trump, it’s never been about helping the country, it’s only about helping himself. There’s only one candidate in this race who will fight for bipartisan solutions to strengthen border security, and that’s Vice President Harris.”
Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, scoffed at the GOP attacks.
“That was never a term designated to her. And the goal of her work was not necessarily the border or border policy but looking at root causes, which she successfully did,” she said. “And I think it’s always important to point out Republican obstruction at every turn when it came to immigration or border policy.”
Since the bill failed in the Senate, Biden has taken executive actions to crack down on asylum-seeking. Last month, unlawful border crossings fell to the lowest monthly number of his presidency, lower than they were in some months under Trump in 2019. Biden highlighted that in his speech to the country Wednesday, saying “border crossings are lower today” than they were in the Trump era.
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