Vice President Kamala Harris largely kept to her talking points on the ongoing border crisis during her recent media blitz, blaming Congress for the situation while simultaneously crediting belated executive action for reducing the flow of illegal immigrants.
“It’s a longstanding problem. And solutions are at hand,” the Democratic nominee told CBS News’ “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired Monday.
“And from day one, literally, we have been offering solutions.”
Upon taking office on Jan. 20, 2021, the Harris-Biden administration reversed several of former President Donald Trump’s restrictive border policies and quickly saw a surge in illegal crossings.
CBS correspondent Bill Whitaker told Harris that “I know this is not a problem that started with your administration.”
“But there was an historic flood of undocumented immigrants coming across the border the first three years of your administration,” he added. “As a matter of fact, arrivals quadrupled from the last year of President Trump.”
After Harris insisted the administration had been “offering solutions,” Whitaker responded: “What I was asking was, was it a mistake to kind of allow that flood to happen in the first place?”
“I think– the policies that we have been proposing are about fixing a problem, not promoting a problem, OK?” the veep responded. “But the–
“But the numbers did quadruple under your watch,” Whitaker repeated before the interview descended into crosstalk.
“We have cut the flow of illegal immigration by half,” Harris insisted as Whitaker tried to ask his question again. “But we need Congress to be able to act to actually fix the problem.”
Early on in his White House tenure, President Biden put a pause on certain deportations, scrapped Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, and halted construction of the US-Mexico border wall.
Since then, more than 8 million migrant encounters at the southern border have been recorded, according to data from US Customs and Border Protection. Under Trump, that number was closer to 2 million.
As Harris mentioned, crossings at the border have dipped substantially, with about 54,000 apprehensions recorded in September, the lowest level under the Harris-Biden administration to date.
During a Tuesday appearance on ABC’s “The View,” Harris largely regurgitated many of those talking points.
“In terms of executive action, we have seen illegal immigrants reduced by half, the intake of fentanyl reduced by half. But ultimately, if we want a real fix to this, Congress has to act,” she argued on the liberal program.
She also alluded to her two visits to the border, one of which took place last month.
“I went down to the border and let me tell you, these border agents are walking around the clock,” she stressed. “They need more resources.
“I have personally prosecuted transnational criminal organizations. I have taken on the cartels. I prosecuted the cartels. I understand the serious nature of this issue and the need to fix it,” she added. “Again, Donald Trump prefers to run on problems and says he’s not solution-oriented.”
In both interviews, Harris highlighted bipartisan immigration legislation she and Biden sought that stalled in Congress.
“When we first came in office, hours after we were inaugurated, the first bill we offered before infrastructure … it was to fix our broken immigration system and it never got taken up in large part for political reasons,” Harris recounted.
Biden had pitched a comprehensive immigration reform bill on his first day that was largely modeled off the bipartisan 2013 bill that ultimately never passed. That measure included a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the US, which most Republicans opposed.
Polls have routinely shown the Harris-Biden administration underwater with voters on the issue of border policy.
Trump and Republicans have long pummeled Harris over Biden’s reversal of the former president’s border policies and the subsequent mayhem at the US-Mexico border.
Harris has sought to deflect that by pointing to the border reform legislation that went belly up in the Senate earlier this year. Republicans initially sought to leverage extractions on border policy in exchange for replenishing aid to Ukraine but later revolted against the deal.
“A bipartisan group of members of the United States Congress, including some of the most conservative members, worked together with our support, to craft the most serious and strong border security bill we’ve seen in years,” she told “The View.”
“Donald Trump got word of it and told them don’t put the bill up for a vote because he didn’t want a solution, because he’d prefer to run on a problem.”
On the campaign trail, Harris has highlighted different elements of her immigration plans depending on the audience.
To Hispanic and Latino voters, she has taken note of her call for a pathway to citizenship for the millions of illegal immigrants in the US. Then, when speaking to moderate voters, she has emphasized tougher border measures.
