▶ Watch Video: Harris backing Biden’s asylum crackdown in border visit Douglas, Arizona — During a visit.
Douglas, Arizona — During a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris vowed to keep President Biden’s asylum crackdown in place if elected, solidifying Democrats’ embrace of more stringent immigration rules.
Harris used her visit to Douglas, Arizona, to address one of the most pressing political vulnerabilities faced by her presidential campaign: illegal immigration. It’s an issue that Americans have grown increasingly worried about in recent years amid record levels of migrant crossings at the southern border, polls show.
Harris promised to increase criminal penalties for repeat border crossers, give the Justice Department more resources to go after transnational gangs and revive a bipartisan border security compromise that would have enacted drastic limits on asylum and boosted the ranks of immigration judges and Border Patrol agents. That deal collapsed earlier this year after former President Donald Trump urged Republican allies in Congress to oppose the measure, which would not have legalized unauthorized immigrants, a longtime Democratic priority.
The sweeping border rules Mr. Biden issued in June, which have virtually shut off access to the U.S. asylum system between legal entry points at the southern border, would remain in place under a Harris administration, she pledged.
