JD Vance slams Kamala Harris on immigration during Arizona border visit

HEREFORD — JD Vance blamed Vice President Kamala Harris as the reason for the nation’s immigration troubles during a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border on Thursday, using an unfinished portion of the border wall as the backdrop to make his case.

Vance notably sidestepped President Joe Biden in taking on Harris, referring to the Biden administration as the “Harris administration” in his remarks now that Biden has dropped out of the presidential race.

“It's hard to believe until you see it with your own eyes, just how bad the policies of the Kamala Harris administration have been when it comes to the southern border,” Vance said.

Vance toured the U.S.-Mexico border in Cochise County Thursday, going to the heart of a top election issue on his first trip to battleground Arizona as former President Donald Trump’s running mate.

Vance was hosted by the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office and received a briefing from officials there. Arizona border rancher John Ladd was also on hand to greet Vance. The vice presidential nominee had been scheduled to tour Ladd's property, but rain made the roads too muddy. The border tour was moved to the Coronado National Memorial instead.

Battleground Arizona was the stage for Vance’s campaign pitch against Harris, the new presumptive nominee he derides as a “failed border czar.” Vance said that Trump would finish building the wall that began construction during his first administration, reimplement the Remain in Mexico policy and expand deportations.

“If people can come into this country and they know they're never going to be deported, you effectively have an open border. That's what Kamala Harris promised. That's what Kamala Harris did, and Donald Trump and I promise to do exactly the opposite,” Vance said.

Arizona has the most fortified stretch of border in the nation with more barriers built under Trump than in any other state. Still, that did not stop smugglers from cutting holes in the wall in broad daylight at the peak of border crossings last year.

By the time he left office, Trump had shut down asylum processing at the border under a public health rule called Title 42. The former president created a program to keep asylum seekers in Mexico two years prior while their cases were adjudicated, and his administration negotiated agreements with the Central American nations that were the largest source of migrants seeking protection in the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic also disrupted migrant flows because of global lockdowns during Trump’s term.

Biden repealed all three of those policies when he took office, but later used an executive order to restrict asylum processing between border crossings. In 2022 and 2023, encounters at the southern border exceeded 2 million for the first time. Those numbers have been on the decline for the last several months, according to data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Officials attribute the new numbers to Biden’s executive order.

Arizona was the busiest migrant crossing route last year, and the decrease in apprehensions here has been dramatic. The number of apprehensions in Arizona in June 2024 was lower than the same month in 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

The U.S.-Mexico border runs for 84 miles in the southern reaches of Cochise County and is home to two ports of entry: Douglas and Naco. The Cochise County Sheriff’s Office is willing to provide border tours and briefings to educate all interested political candidates, Sheriff Mark Dannels said.

The area Vance visited was heavily guarded by law enforcement, with some officers wearing camouflage uniforms and holding long guns atop of a SWAT vehicle. Others patrolled the grass nearby, and officials parked large trucks along the border wall in the area that Vance spoke.

Before Vance arrived, organizers played pop music at the tour side, including Katy Perry’s “Never Really Over.”

Vance toured the border at a time when immigration is top of mind for Arizona voters. Thirty percent of registered voters in the state named immigration as their top issue, according to a recent Emerson College poll, a higher percentage than those who named the economy as their top issue.

The issue is seen as a challenge for Harris, who President Joe Biden tasked with addressing the root causes of immigration from Central American countries early in his term. Harris fought against that perception during a Georgia rally this week, blaming Trump for killing a bipartisan immigration deal earlier this year and pointing to her time as California attorney general.

"I went after transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers that came into our country illegally. I prosecuted them. In case after case, and I won," Harris said on stage. "Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been talking a big game about securing our border, but he does not walk the walk."

Harris also rolled out endorsements from four Arizona border mayors this week, including Bisbee Mayor Ken Budge in Cochise County. She launched a new ad campaign focused on immigration, with pledges to hire more border patrol officers and invest in technology to block fentanyl.

“The border bill would have made our country safer, made the border more secure, and it was supported by Donald Trump and JD Vance’s allies like the Border Patrol union — which endorsed Trump for president twice,” Budge said on a Harris campaign press call. “And now that it’s election time, JD Vance and Trump are here to campaign on the border — even though they’re responsible for blocking the most important bill we’ve seen to improve border security.”

Vance tied his own childhood experience when his mother was suffering from drug addiction to the struggles of people who are impacted by fentanyl coming over the border from Mexico. The vast majority of fentanyl seizures at the border happen at ports of entry, and much of it is through Arizona’s border crossings.

“I have been a little kid waiting at the bedside of his mother, angry that his mom took something that she shouldn't have taken, but praying to God, please Jesus let her wake up,” Vance said. “The unfortunate truth is because of the poison that Kamala Harris has let come into this country, there are a lot of those prayers that won't be answered. There are a lot of parents that won't wake up. Because when you take fentanyl, you don't wake up, it takes your life.”

Problems at the southern border have been a core focus of Trump’s three presidential campaigns, from his 2016 pledge to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to his 2024 campaign promise to “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.”

National Border Patrol Council President Paul Perez appeared with Vance Thursday and gave the Trump campaign a vote of confidence.

“There is a playbook. President Trump had it, and he still has it. They can make it happen,” Perez said.

Republic reporter Sarah Lapidus contributed to this story.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: JD Vance visits Arizona-Mexico border and criticizes Kamala Harris