It is mind-boggling to contemplate that polls suggest voters trust Trump more than Harris on the issue of immigration. Amnesia must have set in.
Let’s not forget that in Trump’s first term, he took his vilification and dehumanization of desperate migrants fleeing gang violence, political chaos and climate disaster to heights of cruelty, snatching infants and toddlers from their mothers’ arms, then losing them in the system so they couldn’t be reunited. He supported stuffing children in cages, was accused by the ACLU and other groups of forcing hysterectomies on immigrant women without their consent, and imprisoned people in detention camps who were marched under guard from place to place.
Cruelty was the feature meant to “discourage” people who nonetheless were so desperate they had no choice but to spend their life savings and endanger their lives if they and their families would have any chance of survival.
And the same architects – Steven Miller and Project 2025 author Tom Homan, the source of his cruel family separation policy, who Trump praised in Wisconsin – are back and providing the blueprint for what Trump would do: round up 12 million “undocumented” immigrants whom they label “illegal criminal aliens,” remove them from their family and home and throw them into detention camps for deportation.
Trump is even promising to deport legal migrants like those Ohio Haitians who have been given Temporary Protected Status, and strip citizenship from naturalized immigrants. To do this, Trump would deploy the military, militarize local police and basically round up anyone who remotely looks like a migrant, likely disrupting the lives of citizens.
Trump clearly believes immigration is a winning refrain –just as he did in 2016.This is why he coerced Republicans in the Senate and House to kill the Bipartisan Border Security bill. He wanted to keep the “border crisis” alive as an inflammatory issue.
Vice President Kamala Harris offered a practical, humane, sensible solution to the decades-long immigration problem.
In an address at the U.S.-Mexico border in Douglas, Ariz., Harris called for tougher security measures at the border and called out Trump for wanting to run on a problem instead of fix a problem. “The American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games…I reject the false choice that suggests we must choose between securing our border or creating a system of immigration that is safe, orderly, and humane. We can and must do both…As president, I will put politics aside to fix our immigration system, and find solutions to problems which have persisted for far too long.”
Harris vows to resurrect and sign the bill that Trump tanked, which would have hired 1,500 more border agents and officers; paid for 100 inspection machines to detect the fentanyl that is killing tens of thousands of Americans every year; allowed the government to more efficiently remove those who come here illegally; increased the number of immigration judges and asylum officers.
Harris would go even further, proposing:
- Those who cross the border unlawfully will be apprehended and removed and barred from re-entering for five years.
- Repeat violators would be subject to more severe criminal charges.
- If someone does not make an asylum request at a legal port of entry and instead crosses the border unlawfully, they will be barred from receiving asylum.
“While we understand that many people are desperate to migrate to the United States, our system must be orderly and secure,” she said.
A former border state attorney general who prosecuted transnational criminal organizations for trafficking guns, drugs, and human beings, Harris unveiled her plan to destroy the entire global fentanyl supply chain – doubling Justice Department resources to extradite and prosecute the transnational cartels and go after the chemicals mostly made in China that are shipped to the Mexican cartels for processing and distribution into the U.S. She would also provide border officers the personnel, training and technology, including 100 new inspection systems that can detect fentanyl, to significantly increase the number of vehicles that can be searched at the border crossings. Her plan would provide state-of-the-art technology to detect fentanyl and the chemicals and tools used to make it at all ports of entry, including airports and seaports.
Most significantly, she wants to finally fix the decades-long broken immigration system and create legal pathways for people seeking to migrate to the United States.
“We must ensure that our country remains strong and competitive, which includes fixing our broken immigration system,” she said.
As of now, it can take years for asylum claims to be decided, so Harris proposes hiring more asylum officers and expanding processing centers in people’s home countries. She proposes working with Congress “to create, at long last, a pathway to citizenship for hardworking immigrants who have been here for years. Like Dreamers,” she said. Also the parents of American citizens, and spouses of American citizens who have been married for more than 10 years.
Harris would also help American communities welcome new arrivals by continuing to provide impact aid to support local communities adjusting to newly arriving immigrants, continuing to support the private-public partnership that has successfully resettled refugees for over 50 years, and responsibly engaging private citizens as sponsors for those admitted on parole visas.
While Trump conveniently attacks the Biden-Harris administration for the border crisis, migration is a global problem. As of May 2024, 120 million were forcibly displaced around the world – 1.5% of the world’s population – due to persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations, political unrest, poverty, the UN Refugee Agency reported. Add to this millions displaced by climate disasters. The number of climate refugees could reach an unimaginable 1.2 billion by 2050, the Institute for Economics & Peace predicted.
“Governments are overwhelmed by the challenge, constrained by capacity, resources and politics. In the U.S., our system for receiving refugees has not modernized in over 40 years,” Nazanin Ash of Welcome.US, told the 2024 Clinton Global Initiative. Welcome.US is an organization which has figured a way to resettle 700,000 refugees over the past three years in some 12,000 U.S. communities across all 50 states, and plans to resettle 500,000 a year.
The alternative to finding a humane solution?
“You can draw a line from unmanaged migration to the erosion of human rights and the rise of authoritarian regimes. But that is not the whole story and not our story as Americans,” Ash added.
It is clear which line Trump is on. Vice President Kamala Harris offers a solution that fits our American story.
“It is time for us to turn the page on the ugly battles that have characterized our politics. And time to move forward together, to achieve real solutions that make our country stronger,” Harris declared.
See more detail: VP KAMALA HARRIS AT THE BORDER: ‘I WILL PROTECT OUR NATION’S SOVEREIGNTY, SECURE OUR BORDER, AND WORK TO FIX OUR BROKEN SYSTEM OF IMMIGRATION’
