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The crisis at the southern border has become a centerpiece of the 2024 presidential race, as GOP vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance of Ohio hit out at Vice President Kamala Harris at the border on Thursday over her handling of the crisis — days after her campaign sought to draw a contrast between her and former President Trump on the hot-button issue.
"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 in Cochise County, Arizona. "They started their administration, Kamala Harris came into office... they stopped deportations on day one. They stopped construction of the border wall."
Vance tapped into Republican arguments about how the Biden administration ended what they see as successful Trump-era policies and unleashed havoc at the border.
Vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, addresses the media during his visit to the U.S.-Mexico border in Hereford, Arizona, on Thursday. (Grace Trejo/Arizona Daily Star via AP)
"We see the border wall sitting here, ready to be completed behind us. And that can't happen because of Kamala Harris' administration. They reinstated catch-and-release and they stopped Remain in Mexico," he continued. "So all these asylum claimants who come to our border, they can now get released into our country because they're not forced to stay in Mexico while we adjudicate their asylum claims."
Vance also described securing the border as "not rocket science."
"You just have to re-implement some commonsense policies. You've got to re-implement Remain in Mexico. You've got to stop catch-and-release," he said. "You've got to force these asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while their claims are being adjudicated. And you've got to finish this border wall and re-implement deportations."
Vance’s border visit came after former President Trump also said he will visit the border before November, potentially multiple times.
Republicans have hammered Harris on the southern border, given not only the crisis there but Harris’ leadership in international diplomacy on root causes, which led to her being dubbed the "border czar" by the media and Republicans.
But Harris has pushed back, highlighting an endorsement by a group of mayors in Arizona border towns "praising her long record of fighting to secure the border and fix our broken immigration system, including her work going after transnational gangs smuggling weapons and drugs as California Attorney General and bringing border crossings to their lowest level in years with tough border policies in the White House."
This week, Harris released an ad contrasting her support of a bipartisan border package unveiled in the Senate which would have increased border funding and placed some limits on entries into the U.S. The Biden administration has said it would help tackle the border crisis, but Trump and his allies killed it off.
The video argued that Harris "helped lead the way to record low border crossings and has spent her entire career keeping our communities safe," and charged that Trump "sided with drug traffickers and the cartels to block the strongest, fairest reforms to secure the border in decades."
The Trump campaign instantly pilloried the video.
"Every statement in Kamala’s border ad is an absolute lie. The truth is that President Trump handed the most secure border in history to the Biden-Harris Administration, and they opened it up by erasing every one of his good policies," the Trump campaign charged. "As Border Czar, Kamala Harris has overseen the worst immigration crisis in American history, enabling drug cartels to smuggle deadly fentanyl across our border and allowing more than 11 million illegal criminals and terrorists from all over the world to enter our country."
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally in Atlanta on Tuesday. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
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Harris criticized Trump at a rally in Atlanta earlier this week, saying he "has been talking a big game about securing our border, but he does not walk the walk."
She charged that the former president "tanked the bipartisan deal because he thought it would help him win an election" and pledged that "as the president I will bring back the border security bill that Donald Trump killed."
After Vance’s speech on Thursday, Harris' campaign took aim at both Trump and Vance.
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"Donald Trump and JD Vance are not offering Americans solutions — only insults, chaos, and fear. They don’t want security at our border, they want to spread fear. They don’t want to help working families, their Project 2025 agenda only hurts them," Harris for President spokesperson James Singer said.
Fox News' Greg Norman and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
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