Harris goes on offense over the border in attempt to undercut Trump
LAS VEGAS — Speaking to supporters at a campaign rally here Saturday night, Kamala Harris told attendees that she knows the issues with the immigration system and how to fix them, touting her work as California attorney general.
“I went after transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers who came into our country illegally. I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won,” Harris said to cheers.
“We know our immigration system is broken and we know what it takes to fix it. Comprehensive reform that includes, yes, strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship.”
Then she turned her focus on her rival: “Donald Trump [doesn’t] want to fix this problem. He talks a big game — about a lot of things — but he talks a big game about border security. But he does not walk the walk.”
In the nascent weeks of her presidential campaign, Harris has tried to flip the script on the Republican attacks on her immigration record. During her first campaign swing through the Southwest as the Democratic nominee, she continued to portray herself as tough on the border and went on the offensive to attack former president Donald Trump, who has centered much of his campaign on border issues.
Republicans for years have attacked Harris as a failed “border czar” responsible for dealing with the surge of migrants at the border, and those attacks have only grown since she became the nominee. As vice president, she was directed by President Joe Biden to tackle the enduring root causes of migration, like poverty and violence, in Central America. She was never put in charge of the border nor labeled a “czar.”
At the rally, Harris also unveiled a proposal to “raise the minimum wage and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers.” Trump proposed eliminating taxes on tips in June during a rally in Las Vegas.
Trump responded to Harris’s support for the idea on Truth Social, saying she “just copied my NO TAXES ON TIPS Policy. The difference is, she won’t do it, she just wants it for Political Purposes! This was a TRUMP idea – She has no ideas, she can only steal from me.”
Supporters waited in extreme heat to attend the event, huddling near large misters pointed at the line. According to a campaign official, more than 12,000 people attended the event held at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas’s Thomas & Mack Center before doors were closed due to the temperatures.
“Local law enforcement made the decision to close the doors to the event due to people becoming ill while waiting outside to go through security in the 109-degree heat. Approximately 4,000 people were in line when the entrances were shut down,” said the official.
In Atlanta last month, she described her border focus while working in California, telling attendees, “I was the attorney general of a border state. In that job, I walked underground tunnels between the United States and Mexico on that border with law enforcement officers.”
Harris has also taken aim at Trump for his immigration policies, blaming him for blocking a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year and arguing that he doesn’t want to resolve the issue.
“Earlier this year, we had a chance to pass the toughest bipartisan border security bill in decades. But Donald Trump tanked the bill because he thought it would help him win an election,” she said in Las Vegas. “Well, when I am president, I will sign that bill into law.”
Asked about Harris’s claims, a Trump campaign spokesperson directed The Post to a video shared by Trump on Truth Social on Saturday.
The video says Harris would provide health care for undocumented immigrants, using footage of a Democratic primary debate in 2020, when Harris raised her hand when candidates were asked to do so if their health plan would cover undocumented immigrants. The text on screen concludes: “Failed. Weak. Dangerously liberal.”
A Harris campaign ad released Friday highlighted the same components of Harris’s biography that she has raised on the trail when discussing immigration.
“As president, she will hire thousands more border agents and crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking,” the ad’s narrator says, concluding: “Fixing the border is tough. So is Kamala Harris.”
Last week, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted both Arizona and Nevada from “lean Republican” to “toss up,” reversing a move it made in early July before Biden’s decision to leave the presidential race and endorse Harris.
Dan Kanninen, the Harris campaign’s battleground states director, said in a memo Friday that the campaign in Nevada has “the largest in-state operation of any coordinated campaign ever with 13 offices and nearly 100 staff on the ground.” In Arizona, he said, “the campaign has 12 coordinated offices with six more to come — the most of any Arizona coordinated campaign in history,” with more than 120 full-time staffers.
Clark Willits — a supporter from California who drove nine hours to attend the event and then waited outside in the heat for five hours to get inside — dismissed the attacks from the right on Harris’s immigration record.
“I think she can’t skirt it under the rug, so to speak, but I don’t think she has much to worry about when it comes to immigration,” he said. “I believe in her, and I know that she will pass immigration reform, because she takes those matters very seriously as a multiracial individual herself.”
“She gets it,” he added. “Trump, on the other hand, he wants to build a wall. You know, there’s no comparison. So I think it’s a weak argument.”