Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is trying to position her as a tough-on-the-border candidate, but a former Border Patrol leader is warning people not to believe that.
Harris' campaign has released a series of ads claiming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee will “fix the border” and crack down on illegal immigration by increasing the number of Border Patrol agents. But Rodney Scott, a former Border Patrol chief who ran the agency while Harris was “border czar,” said voters needed to look at her record to understand how she would actually handle border security. (Related: Greg Abbott urges Biden-Harris administration to reimburse illegal immigrants for medical expenses in new executive order)
“Look at the track record, look at the details,” Scott told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It's a sham ploy.”
“Like the Senate bill, she supports more funding and more agents, but it's to get more illegal immigrants into the United States faster and to expedite the process,” Scott said, referring to the now-defunct Senate border deal that failed in the House earlier this year. “It's not border security.”
WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 23: Former U.S. Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott testifies before the House Subcommittee on Immigration Security, Security, and Enforcement at the Capitol in Washington, DC on May 23, 2023. The committee heard testimony on the topic, “The Biden Border Crisis: Part III.” (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
in Election Advertising In a statement released in July, Harris' campaign claimed the vice president supported increased Border Patrol agents, backed new technology to stop drugs from entering the United States, and even criticized former President Donald Trump for not supporting a Senate border deal. New Advertisement This week, she launched a campaign statement as a tough border state prosecutor and reiterated her pledge to hire “thousands more” border patrol agents.
The new campaign appears to be at odds with her record as a U.S. senator and vice president.
When Harris was running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, she was one of a large number of candidates who raised their hands when asked if they supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings. As a senator, she once tried to liken Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and joined a growing list of Senate Democrats who formally opposed then-President Donald Trump's efforts to send more Border Patrol agents to the country.
NumbersUSA, a group that advocates for tougher immigration policies, has called her Senate record F-rating The group has supported several bills that it says would weaken border security and encourage more illegal immigration.
Scott served as head of the Border Patrol for the final year of the Trump administration and the first seven months of the Biden-Harris administration, a period that overlapped with Harris' assignment to address the root causes of illegal migration from Central America. Scott, now retired, acknowledged to the DCNF that he had never spoken with Harris after she received her special designation as “border czar.”
“'I support increasing funding for more agents,'” Scott said, mocking Harris' new ad. “So what are you going to do about it?”
“She supports increased funding, not for border security or for better technology at the border, but for faster processing,” he explained. “If you look closely at her policies and her statements, she's very consistent.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen (center) tours the border area with Border Patrol Chief of the San Diego Division, Rodney Scott (left), at Border Field State Park along the US-Mexico border fence in San Ysidro, California, on November 20, 2018. (Photo by Sandy Huffaker/AFP) (Photo by Sandy Huffaker/AFP via Getty Images)
The former secretary noted that the Biden-Harris administration has “diverted millions of dollars” from enforcement activities of the Border Patrol and other Customs and Border Protection (CBP) resources to allow more illegal immigrants into the country, and accused the administration of diverting huge amounts of taxpayer funds to NGOs to allow illegal immigrants to be flown “wherever they want to go” instead of prioritizing enforcement.
“The Border Patrol is preventing people from entering homes without going through the front door, which is the port of entry,” Scott said. “They are enforcing the law, not looking for loopholes in the law.”
Harris' recent push to take a tougher stance on the border comes after she chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat with a history of left-leaning moves on illegal immigration, as her running mate.
As governor, Walz signed legislation allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses and signed bills providing state-funded health care and free college tuition to undocumented immigrants. As a candidate for governor in 2018, he publicly voiced support for making Minnesota a sanctuary state, which would largely prohibit local and state law enforcement from working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to arrest aliens who commit crimes.
Walz is also opposed to border security measures. As a congressman, he called Trump's border wall “a scam.”Ridiculous” etc. I recently joked As for the border wall, he said he would invest in a ladder factory.
If recent polls are accurate, Harris' team will face an uphill battle in revamping the image of border security: A Hurd-Harris Poll released late last month found that 69% of voters believe the vice president is in favor of “open borders,” including a clear majority of Democrats.
The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
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