Vice President Kamala Harris is visiting the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona on Friday, where she is expected to take a more hawkish view on immigration than any Democrat in recent memory.
Immigration policy is highly salient in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election. It is a top issue for voters‘ in November’s election and in Arizona, which is the only battleground state that borders Mexico.
A poll by Redfield and Wilton Strategies shows that 47 percent of respondents trust Trump on immigration compared to 36 percent who trust Harris. That is a gap that has been closing in recent weeks, as border crossings have fallen sharply in the aftermath of President Biden’s executive order limiting asylum claims.
Harris’ sharper tone on securing the border reflects Democrats‘ belief that they can continue to narrow that gap.
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It also reflects shifting public attitudes towards immigration. According to Gallup, 55 percent of voters — including nearly 30 percent of Democrats — want to see new curbs on immigration, the highest recorded figure since 2001.
Kamala Harris vs. Donald Trump: Immigration and Border Policies
Harris and Trump offer different approaches to U.S. immigration and border policy, reflecting broader ideological differences between the Democratic and Republican platforms.
In outlining its priorities, the GOP ranked immigration as one of its top two concerns, announcing plans to secure the border after the November election, assuming a Trump victory.
The party’s platform declares: “Republicans offer an aggressive plan to stop the open-border policies that have opened the floodgates to a tidal wave of illegal aliens, deadly drugs, and migrant crime,” the platform reads.
“We will end the invasion at the southern border, restore law and order, protect American sovereignty, and deliver a safe and prosperous future for all Americans.”
In comparison, the Democratic Party platform stays away from terms like “invasion” and states: “Congress must pass legislation to reform our asylum system modeled after the bipartisan Senate deal so that we can quickly identify and provide protection to those who are fleeing persecution and ensure it is not used as an alternative to legal immigration by others.
“Democrats believe that asylum processing should be efficient and fair, and that those who are determined not to have a legal basis to remain should be quickly removed.”
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According to the party’s platform, the president should have emergency authority to expel migrants who are crossing unlawfully and stop processing asylum claims except for those using a safe and orderly process at ports of entry.
The powers should come with humanitarian exceptions for vulnerable populations, including unaccompanied children and victims of trafficking, according to the document.
The Democratic Party platform offers something of a more humane approach to migrants, while the GOP and Trump’s approach is grounded in strict enforcement and deterrence.
Trump’s border policies during his presidency focused heavily on reducing unauthorized immigration, including the partial construction of a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, expanding immigration enforcement, and introducing stricter asylum rules.
Trump also pushed for a reduction in legal immigration pathways, promoting measures like limiting family-based immigration.
One of his most controversial initiatives was “zero tolerance” policy that resulted in family separations at the southern border and was widely decried as cruel and inhumane, leading the administration to end it.
Under Trump, the emphasis was on curbing both legal and illegal immigration, portraying migrants as potential security threats. He also advocated for terminating the Dreamers program.
A “Dreamer” is an immigrant who was brought to the U.S. illegally as a child but has since grown up to identify as an American.
Kamala Harris, on the other hand, supports policies that favor comprehensive immigration reform, prioritizing humanitarian protections and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, including so-called Dreamers.
Harris supports modernizing legal immigration systems to address backlogs and provide more robust asylum protections, in contrast with Trump’s restrictive asylum policies.
She also supports expanding legal work visas and updating family reunification programs, and has framed immigration as an asset to the American economy and society.
In terms of border security, Harris advocates for strengthening the border while preserving humanitarian protections and balancing enforcement with compassion for those who desire a better life in the U.S.
Republicans have accused her of failing to act on those policies while she’s been vice president, blaming her for the rise in illegal border crossings and branding her as Biden’s “border czar” for the job Biden gave her of addressing the “root causes” of migration.
The Biden administration announced in June a new policy, criticized by Republicans as “amnesty,” that would protect hundreds of thousands of undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens from deportation and allow them to work legally.
Taylor Rogers, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, told Newsweek: “Legal immigrants that come to our country to seek out the American dream are angry with Harris’ amnesty policies letting illegal immigrants cut the line and skip the process to enter legally.”
Harris openly supports awarding legal status to millions of people who are illegally residing in the United States, which the GOP calls “mass amnesty.”
In a speech to members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus last week, she pledged to create a “pathway to citizenship” for millions of undocumented immigrants.
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What has Donald Trump said about immigration and border control?
During the presidential debate earlier this month, Trump repeated unsubstantiated claims and rumors circulating online that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents’ pets.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs—the people that came in,” the former president said. “They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”
Responding to Trump’s debunked claims, Brad Jones, a professor of political science at UC-Davis, told Newsweek: “Trump has capitalized on very scary but false narratives of immigrant criminality and pairs this with imagery of migrants at the border. In turn, he instills fear in his base, and this fear is continuing to fuel his campaign.”
Trump has promised to carry out mass deportations of migrants, stating millions could be removed from the U.S. under his administration. He has not provided details on how such a program would work.
Nearly all Democrats and even some Republicans have cast doubt on Trump‘s proposed mass deportation plan, arguing that the United States lacks the necessary means to implement it.
Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales previously told Newsweek that the U.S. does not have the “resources” to carry out Trump’s plan, never mind the legality of removing millions of people without the due process that’s enshrined in the Constitution, even for non-citizens.
Eric Ruark, Director of Research and Sustainability at the anti-immigration nonprofit NumbersUSA, told Newsweek: “The conversation about “mass deportations” takes away from the reality that there can be no functioning legal immigration system if… “those who should not be here will be required to leave.”
“The argument on the other side is sort of a riff on “Hotel California.” Illegal immigrants can check into the United States anytime they like, but Americans can never demand that they leave.
Jones, the UC-Davis professor, told Newsweek that a second Trump administration would make life more difficult for migrants of all stripes.
“Trump has called for mass deportation, has spread demonstrably false claims about immigrant criminality and threat, and ceaselessly castigates immigrants. This would obviously continue in a new administration because it never stopped after his first administration.”
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What has Kamala Harris said about immigration and border control?
Harris backed the Biden-led bipartisan border security bill earlier this year before it was effectively torpedoed by Republicans at the request of Trump. The GOP nominee urged congressional Republicans to kill the bill, thus depriving the administration of introducing a flagship immigration policy in the months before an election that could be decided on the issue.
Harris pledged to revive the bill as she accepted the party nomination at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago.
“Joe and I brought together Democrats and conservative Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades; the border patrol endorsed it,” Harris said.
“But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign,” she said. “So, he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal.”
“I refuse to play politics with our security,” Harris added and pledged to “bring back the bipartisan border security bill that [Trump] killed and sign it into law.”
“I know we can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system; we can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border.”
At the same time, Harris seems to endorse a more restrictive approach, akin to Biden’s executive order, which capped the number of asylum-seekers permitted to enter the country.
She also backs the CBP One app, a way for migrants to schedule immigration hearings from their phone before they cross the border, which was implemented by the Biden administration in early 2023.
During her failed presidential run in 2020, Harris was a staunch opponent of Trump’s border wall and called it a “distraction” and a “medieval vanity project.”