Sept. 27 (UPI) — Vice President Kamala Harris will visit the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday where she is expected to target the flow of illegal fentanyl into the country and call for more resources for border agents, campaign officials said.
Harris will travel to Douglas, Ariz., the site of the state’s second longest port of entry along the border with Mexico where a campaign aide told USA Today she will stress that she is “pushing the toughest bipartisan border security plan in a generation.”
She is expected to express continued support for the bill that aimed to fund the Southwest border and expand the power of the president to use emergency authority to shut down the border to stem unauthorized border crossings once they hit a certain level.
The measure had Republican support in the House as part of a broader National Security Supplemental until House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., called it “dead on arrival” after former President Donald Trump spoke out against it.
“[Harris will] reject the false choice between securing the border and creating an immigration system that is safe, orderly and humane, arguing we must do both to protect our country’s security and enduring legacy as a nation of immigrants,” a campaign spokesperson told The Hill.
Harris is also set to meet with border patrol agents during the trip.
She has faced criticism from Trump, the Republican nominee, who has said she has been ineffective since President Joe Biden tasked her with leading efforts to stem immigration at the southern border in 2021.
“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 said on X. “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.”
Harris visited El Paso in June 2021, four months after being placed in charge of the border efforts, where she called for solutions to tackle the “root causes” of immigration.