Cochise County, Arizona — Sen. J.D. Vance, President Donald Trump’s former vice presidential running mate, visited the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona on Thursday, where he criticized the Biden administration’s immigration policies and took aim at Vice President Kamala Harris over her file on the issue.
“It’s hard to believe, until you see it with your own eyes, how bad the policies of the Kamala Harris administration have been when it comes to the southern border,” Vance said, not mentioning President Biden and focusing his criticism on the presumptive Democratic nominee. The Ohio Republican was given a tour of the border wall by law enforcement in Cochise County, Arizona, which has become a access point for border crossings.
Vance has promised that a Trump-Vance White House would reinstate Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, end so-called “catch and release” policies and finish building the border wall. He has also promised to carry out mass deportations of illegal immigrants, a promise Trump has made since launching his 2024 campaign.
The visit comes as the number of illegal migrant crossings along the U.S. southern border continues to decline, down for the fifth consecutive month in July and reaching the lowest level since the fall of 2020. But Vance told CBS News in an interview after his border tour that he didn’t think the Biden-Harris administration was doing anything right on immigration.
“No, I don’t think so. And when the Harris administration says border crossings are down, they’re not counting a lot of people” who are coming through legal ports of entry, Vance said. “In fact, if you put all of that together, the number of people crossing our border illegally is still at record levels.”
Republicans often accuse the administration of playing a “sleight of hand” by admitting migrants at ports of entry, thereby diverting them from illegal crossings. But entering a port of entry is not illegal, as Vance suggests, and the number of crossings has still declined significantly when illegal crossings and admissions at ports of entry are grouped together.
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When asked what specifically he would do to curb the root causes of immigration from South American countries, a task Harris was tasked with doing early in the Biden administration, Vance falsely claimed she was the “border czar,” a misrepresentation of her role in combating migration, primarily through diplomacy and private sector investment.
“As the border official, she was tasked with addressing the root causes of immigration,” Vance said. “I think the root causes of illegal immigration are Kamala Harris’ refusal to do her job.”
“It’s not rocket science,” Vance added, stressing that he would work to “strengthen the economies of Central and South America to make migration less common so people can build a life in their home countries.”
In the first four months of 2024, the Border Patrol recorded more than 250,000 migrant apprehensions in the Tucson sector, which includes Cochise County. That’s the most of any region the agency patrols, according to government statistics.
Vance also referenced his own family history of addiction in blaming the Biden-Harris administration for the flow of fentanyl into the United States.
“I was a little kid waiting at my mother’s bedside, angry because my mother had taken something she shouldn’t have taken, but I was praying to God, please, Jesus, to wake her up. And the sad truth is, it’s because of the poison that Kamala Harris has allowed into this country,” Vance said.
The Ohio senator also defended his push to complete the border wall against critics who say the barriers are disruptive and impractical.
“I’m sure everything is not perfect, but sometimes law enforcement causes disruption, [and] “This is the kind of thing that is absolutely necessary for us to have a secure border,” Vance told CBS News. “I think the disruption that would be caused by an influx of people is far worse than the disruption that would be caused by building a wall. So this is one of those things where the cost-benefit analysis, I think, definitely says that we should finish this border wall.”
Camilo Montoya-Galvez, Ed O’Keefe,
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contributed to this report.
