Democrats in tough races know the border is a mess

 Washington Examiner:

When Vice President Kamala Harris assessed the U.S.-Mexico border as “secure” weeks ago, lawmakers across the political aisle balked.

Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are apprehended each month trying to reach the United States, coming in record numbers since President Joe Biden and Harris took office on Jan. 20, 2021. The surge comes despite Harris’s diplomatic entreaties to Mexican officials after Biden put her in charge of overseeing border security.

While Harris's approach to border security has drawn criticism from congressional Republicans, some Democratic lawmakers have been unsparing in critiquing Harris's job performance.

Harris “is absolutely wrong on that. It’s not secure,” Rep. Tim Ryan, the Ohio Democratic Senate nominee, said in a debate against GOP rival J.D. Vance. “We have a lot of work to do.”

And Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), in a tough reelection fight in the new Laredo and eastern San Antonio suburbs 28th Congressional District, mocked Harris's claims of a "secure" southern border.

“You’re talking about ... maybe 4.4 million individuals in two years,” Cuellar told CNN. “If you call that secure, I don’t know what secure is.”

Tasked by Biden with slowing the number of arrivals at the border, Harris has taken pains to stress that her focus is on the diplomatic side of the equation, not on “doing the border,” as one aide put it to reporters early on.

Biden’s own advisers had assessed the political risk. In April 2021, not long after the president entered the White House, his pollster, John Anzalone, shone a spotlight on the issue in a memo, stating, “Immigration is a growing vulnerability for the president.” Drawing on surveys and private polling, Anzalone wrote that “voters do not feel he has a plan to address the situation on the border, and it is starting to take a toll.”

The note came just weeks after the president had tasked Harris with slowing the number of arrivals at the border, a role described as a politically fraught “hand grenade” by one Republican strategist at the time.

Yet the effort promised potential rewards for a vice president with higher aspirations who was seeking to burnish her national profile. Reports later that year indicated that Harris bristled at being assigned a no-win task that could hamper her political future. Yet when asked at an event whether she was concerned about taking on an issue that had long vexed other politicians, Harris responded, “No.”
...

According to an NPR poll this summer, 54% of respondents said the country was fielding an “invasion” at the southern border, including 40% of Democrats and 46% of independents. In a September NBC News survey, more than a quarter of respondents identified border security as the nation’s first or second most important issue.

Those living along the U.S. border have wondered aloud why the White House has failed to confront the concerns facing their communities. Republicans, too, have pressed for answers.
...

Biden is chiefly responsible for the mess on the border and appointing Harris is just one of his mistakes.  They both deserve impeachment for their response to illegal immigration and their failure to enforce US immigration laws and protect the border.

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