Vice President Kamala Harris, who has overseen an unprecedented surge of illegal immigration during her time in office, sought to present herself as a border hawk on Friday as she visited the southern border for the first time since being handed the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

Beginning her Arizona speech, Harris presented herself as tough on immigration, saying “the United States is a sovereign nation, and I believe we have a duty to set rules at our border and to enforce them.”

“And I take that responsibility very seriously,” she added.

Harris continued, saying that American is “a nation of immigrants,” and as such pains must be taken to reform the immigration system so that it functions properly and “makes our country stronger.”

Despite her recent attempt to appear tough on illegal immigration, Harris has presided over an unprecedented flood of illegal immigrants into the United States as vice president.

As The Daily Wire reported, more than 10 million people have crossed the border under the Biden-Harris administration, with an estimated 1.7 million illegal immigrant gotaways recorded since President Joe Biden was inaugurated in 2021. This is in contrast to the years 2018, 2019, and 2020 during President Donald Trump’s administration, which reported a total of 415,000 reported gotaways.

Harris also visited Trump’s border wall, which in 2019 she called a “medieval vanity project.” In 2020, she said the border wall was a “waste of taxpayer money and won’t make us any safer.”

Kamala: “President Trump’s wall is a racist vanity project.”

Kamala Harris after looking at her poll numbers on border security: pic.twitter.com/3cLJpdk6oO

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) September 27, 2024

The vice president added during her Arizona speech that she supports the recent border security bill, a controversial bipartisan plan that faced intense criticism from many Republicans, and would, according to The Heritage Foundation, codify “crisis levels of daily illegal immigration” and make it difficult for a future president to deal with the issue.

Harris continued: “On behalf of all, across our nation, who want to see these problems solved, I say, we cannot accept Donald Trump’s failure to lead, we should not permit scapegoating instead of solutions … or rhetoric instead of results.”

Despite promises to stand tough on illegal immigration, the Biden-Harris administration ended many Trump administration policies that restricted the flow of immigration into the United States, including the Remain in Mexico policy, Title 42, and Proclamation 9844, among others.