With immigration weighing on her candidacy, Harris heads to the front lines

DOUGLAS, Arizona — With a forecasted high temperature of nearly triple digits in late September, Vice President Kamala Harris is set to dive into one of the most heated issues of the 2024 campaign: immigration.

DOUGLAS, Ariz. — With a forecast high temperature near triple digits in late September, Vice President Kamala Harris is set Friday to dive into one of the most heated issues of the presidential campaign: immigration. 

Harris is scheduled to make her first trip to the southern U.S. border in more than three years. It will be her first visit since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and she took over at the top of the ticket.

“We do have a broken immigration system,” Harris said Wednesday in an interview with MSNBC. “And it needs to be fixed.”

Harris will call for tougher security measures, including new fentanyl detection machines and more Border Patrol agents, a senior campaign aide told NBC News. The aide said she also plans to press the Chinese government to do more crack down on companies that make the precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl. Her team is also out with a new ad touting her record as California’s attorney general and highlighting that she prosecuted transnational gangs and drug traffickers.

It’s a remarkable attempt at rebranding for a vice president in an administration that has had a record 10 million illegal border crossings since Biden took office. (Crossings have dropped dramatically since he issued an executive action this year to tighten asylum restrictions.)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/harris-visits-arizona-border-immigration-rcna172905

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