Kamala Harris walks a fine line in Arizona with tougher talk on the border

Jennifer Valenzuela has yet to decide who to back in the US presidential election, but she would lean towards Kamala Harris if the vice-president toughened her stance on migration.

“I believe I would vote for her,” said Valenzuela, a 28-year-old stay-at-home mum in the border town of Douglas, Arizona. “It just depends [on what she says about the border],” she added, noting “more security” would make her more likely to do so.

Voters such as Valenzuela were in Harris’s sights on Friday when she made her first campaign visit to the US-Mexico frontier to pledge a crackdown on illegal immigration. It was a stark departure from her party’s traditional rhetoric on the subject. 

“The United States is a sovereign nation and I believe we have the duty to set rules at our border and to enforce them,” she said as she staked out a position on immigration to the right of President Joe Biden.

Harris was in Arizona to boost her appeal among voters in one of the seven swing states that will decide who occupies the White House next year. Donald Trump holds a 1.3-point lead in the state, according to the latest Financial Times poll tracker.

By talking tough on immigration, the vice-president is hoping to narrow the polling gap on an issue in which she has consistently trailed her Republican rival. An NBC News poll this month gave Trump a 21-point lead on border security — less than his 35-point lead over Biden on the topic in January, but still substantial. 

But Harris wants to take the fight to Trump on the issue, promising if elected to take “further action” to prevent illegal crossings, tighten asylum measures and pursue “more severe criminal charges” for those who flout the rules.

“This is a decidedly different approach to border security than we’ve seen in the past 30 years from a Democratic nominee,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican political strategist. “It reflects specific proposals and a border wall visit, directly challenging Trump’s biggest strength.

“She doesn’t need to win this issue. She just needs to narrow the gap on it and she laid out an aggressive policy agenda to do that.”

It is a dramatic shift for Harris, who just four years ago while campaigning for the Democratic nomination said she would decriminalise illegal border crossings. As Douglas shoppers bustled in and out of Walmart on Friday in the baking Arizona heat, the reception was broadly positive. 

“I’m glad to see that she’s down here,” said 68-year-old Linda Rojas. “I definitely think that she needs a tougher approach and [by being here she can] just look at things and get a perspective as to how it is on the border and see if she can implement anything new.”

Ana Vicaña, a 50-year-old restaurant owner, thought there was a need for more force on the border. But she planned to vote Democrat, calling Trump a “bad racist”. “Kamala Harris is here right now — sounding us out.”

The border has been a consistent thorn in the side of the Biden administration. Illegal crossings surged to record levels last year, driven by unrest in Latin America and the president’s repeal of some of the more extreme policies of the Trump White House. 

But crossings have fallen sharply since Biden introduced an executive order shutting the border when numbers escalate. Harris would extend and strengthen that order if elected, according to her campaign officials, making it harder to reopen the border as numbers subside.  

She also vowed to revive a bipartisan border security bill that was scuttled this year, accusing Trump of an “abdication of leadership” for calling on Republicans in Congress to block it to avoid handing Biden a win on the issue. 

But Harris will have to tread a fine line between coaxing undecided voters with tougher rhetoric on migration and alienating the Democratic base by appearing insensitive to the plight of those seeking asylum. 

“I reject the false choice that suggests we must choose either between securing our border and creating a system that is orderly, safe and humane,” Harris said on Friday. “We can and we must do both.”

Harsh rhetoric on immigration has been a central pillar of Trump’s political career. His vow to “build the wall” helped him to clinch victory in 2016 and he imposed a suite of anti-immigration policies while in office. He has since accused new arrivals of “poisoning the blood of our country” and proposed militarised mass deportations if re-elected.

Speaking at a rally in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, on Saturday, Trump dismissed Harris’s speech as “bullshit” and accused her of “erasing our border”.

“She’s letting in people who are going to walk into your house, break into your door . . . These people are animals,” he said. “I will liberate Wisconsin from the mass migrant invasion.”

Democratic officials are hoping that Harris’s hardened tone on immigration will appeal to undecided voters who are concerned about border security but turned off by Trump’s more outlandish statements, such as promoting false claims about Haitian migrants eating pets. 

“That language — I’m not saying it’s not impactful — but its only really impactful within the Republican base. It’s not working with swing voters,” said DJ Quinlan, a Democratic strategist and long-standing political operative in Arizona.

“Swing voters are very tired of [the border] being used as a political issue and I think they’re looking for people who are going to solve problems — and I think that is what the vice-president has been tapping into.”

Closing Trump’s lead on the border will be important if Harris is to win Arizona and its 11 electoral college votes. But Democrat officials are optimistic.

“It’s in the balance. It’s the razor’s edge. It can go both ways here in Arizona,” said Greg Stanton, an Arizona congressman and head of the New Democrat Coalition Immigration and Border Security Task Force. “Having operational control at the border is always a top tier issue in Arizona and has been for decades.

“The visit today is going to help. I hope that the vice-president comes back a few more times between now and the election. Because we are one of the most crucial battleground states,” Stanton added.

“I like to say: as Arizona goes, so goes the United States of America.”