Harris to visit the southern border for first time as Democratic presidential nominee

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris is set to make her first visit to the southern border since she jumped into the 2024 race, with plans to attack former President Donald Trump on an issue that's central to his campaign.

Harris is scheduled to visit a border town in Arizona on Friday, her campaign announced Wednesday. A campaign aide said she will highlight Trump's role in sinking a bipartisan border deal on Capitol Hill this year.

Immigration and border security are a weak spot for Harris. Polling frequently indicates that she trails Trump on the issue, and Trump repeatedly bashes her record in the Biden administration.

Her campaign is looking to highlight her earlier work on the issue while also painting Trump as "dangerous."

"As a former Attorney General from a border state, she took on international gangs and criminal organizations who traffic drugs, guns, and human beings, and she has long believed we need an immigration system that is secure, fair, orderly and humane, a stark contrast from the divisive and dangerous politics of Donald Trump," a Harris campaign aide said in a statement about the visit.

Harris will speak about “how she is pushing the toughest bipartisan border security plan in a generation,” the aide said.

When Harris discusses border and immigration issues on the campaign trail, she often points to Trump’s pushing congressional Republicans to squash a bipartisan border security bill that would have addressed many of the issues he criticizes.

The measure would have allowed the White House to close the border if too many migrants tried to cross, and it would have raised the "credible fear" standard for asylum claim interviews, funding more border agents and deportation flights.

"Donald Trump got word of the bill, realized it was going to fix a problem he wanted to run on and told them to kill the bill, don’t put it up for a vote," Harris said Wednesday in an interview with MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle. "He killed a bill that would have actually been a solution, because he wants to run on a problem, instead of fixing a problem."

Harris has promised that if elected, she would revive the bill and sign it into law.

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Trump has made the border and immigration a centerpiece of his pitch for the presidency, making multiple visits to the southern border during the campaign. He also has a history of using degrading language to describe migrants, calling them "animals," comparing them to the fictitious cannibal Hannibal Lecter and arguing baselessly that they are taking "Black jobs." In recent days, he has spread lies about Haitian immigrants residing legally in Springfield, Ohio.

Trump has characterized Harris in speeches as weak on the border. He said Tuesday on Truth Social that Harris was going to the border "for political reasons."

"She’s trying to con the public like she did a good job at the Border when, in fact, she has destroyed the very fabric of our Nation," he said in a post that also misstated the number of migrants entering the country.

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Friday's visit to Douglas, Arizona, will be Harris' second trip to the southern border during her term as vice president. Her first trip was to El Paso, Texas, in June 2021.

An NBC News poll conducted this month found that 54% of registered voters thought Trump would better handle securing the border and controlling immigration, compared with 33% who said the same of Harris.

At the same time, the poll indicated that 57% of registered voters thought Harris would be better at treating immigrants humanely and protecting immigrant rights, with 29% saying Trump would be better.

NBC News reported in August that shelters on the southern border and in some major cities experienced sharp declines in migrants seeking shelter over the past several months. Border Patrol agents in June apprehended the lowest monthly number of migrants crossing the southern border since President Joe Biden took office.