Former President Trump used a last-minute event in New York City to attack Vice President Harris over immigration and border security, just one day before Harris is scheduled to visit the U.S. southern border.
“For nearly four years, we have been living through the worst border crisis in the history of the world,” Trump said during a last-minute scheduled appearance at Trump Tower in New York on Thursday.
“There’s never been anything like it, which has brought untold suffering, misery, and death upon our land. The architect of this destruction is Kamala Harris.”
The former president referred to Harris by Republicans’ popular moniker of her, “border czar,” and placed the blame on her regarding some of the Biden administration’s decisions on immigration, including halting border wall construction and allowing asylum seekers to be temporarily “paroled” as they waited for their immigration proceedings versus being detained.
“She ordered an immediate stop to the completion of the border wall,” Trump claimed, at another point saying, “she instituted catch-and-release across the entire southern” border.
“She’s done the worst job, probably in the history of any border, not just our border,” Trump remarked. “She keeps talking about how she supposedly wants to fix the border. We would merely ask, why didn’t she do it four years ago?”
He also invoked Aurora, Colo., and Springfield, Ohio, during his remarks, two municipalities where Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (Ohio), have pushed baseless claims about migrants. His comments have even prompted Republicans to dispute those claims, including from Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman.
Trump’s comments come one day before Harris is set to travel to Douglas, Ariz., to visit the U.S. southern border.
Trump has made immigration a clear focal point in the 2024 election, seeking to argue that he’s tougher on immigration and border security than Harris. The vice president, meanwhile, has slammed Trump for the collapse of a bipartisan border bill and boasted her background as a former California attorney general.
She’s also aired advertising to tout her as “tough” on the border.
She attacked Trump over the bipartisan border bill during an interview Wednesday with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle when asked what a Harris administration would do for communities that have received large numbers of migrants and were at capacity.
“Donald Trump got word of the bill, realized it was going to fix a problem he wanted to run on, and told them to kill the bill, don’t put it up for a vote. He killed a bill that would have actually been a solution, because he wants to run on a problem, instead of fixing a problem,” Harris said.
“And that’s part of what needs to be addressed,” she continued. “And my pledge is that, when elected president, if the American people will have me, I will bring that bill back and I will sign it into law. And we need a comprehensive plan that includes what we need to do to fortify not only our border, but deal with the fact that we also need to create pathways for people to earn citizenship.”
The Hill reached out to the Harris campaign for additional comment.