JD Vance visits southern border, slams Kamala Harris' failures as border czar

JD Vance, the Republican freshman senator from Ohio and now Donald Trump's running mate, visited the southern border on Thursday to highlight Kamala Harris' failures as border czar to prevent illegal immigrants and deadly drugs like fentanyl from pouring into the United States.

Dressed in jeans, boots, and a plaid shirt, Vance stumped an area of southern Arizona known as "smuggler's paradise," talking about the border "crisis" under "Kamala Harris' administration."

'They are BEGGING the American president and vice president for leadership, and their own border czar ignores them.'

"They stopped deportations on day one. They stopped construction of the border wall on day one," Vance claimed.

As he did during his speech at the RNC last month, Vance made the issues at the border personal, once again sharing his mother's former struggles with substance abuse. Vance recalled one particular occasion from his childhood when he prayed fervently for Jesus to help her "wake up" from an apparent drug overdose.

"The unfortunate truth is, because of the poison that Kamala Harris has let come into this country, there are a lot of those prayers that won't be answered. There are a lot of parents that won't wake up because when you take fentanyl, you don't wake up," he explained.

Vance said that despite the manifold problems at the border, the solutions are simple: Deport those here illegally, process asylum-seekers in Mexico, end catch-and-release, and finish the wall.

"If people could come into this country, and they know they’re never going to be deported, you effectively have an open border," Vance argued. "That’s what Kamala Harris promised. That’s what Kamala Harris did."

"This is not rocket science."

Vance also claimed that many border officials, including current National Border Patrol Council president Paul Perez and former council president Brandon Judd, have repeatedly importuned Harris for help, only to be ignored.

"They send letters, they make phone calls," Vance claimed. "They are BEGGING the American president and vice president for leadership, and their own border czar ignores them."

Finally, Vance called out the media for spreading "lies" about Harris' role as border czar. "It's just unbelievable what we're letting happen at the southern border, and we're letting it happen because Kamala Harris refuses to do her job," he said.

"The media needs to tell the truth, and Kamala Harris needs to change course on this crazy border mess."

Since she was appointed by Joe Biden to be the administration's border czar in March 2021, Harris has visited the southern border once. She went there in June 2021 after Lester Holt pressed her on the issue during an interview that later went viral because of her poor performance and after Trump, who was then no longer in office, decided to host a town hall meeting near the border with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas.

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