The Border Patrol union unanimously endorsed Donald Trump onstage at an Arizona rally on Sunday, contrasting the former president’s strong record on illegal immigration with that of “border czar Harris.”
Vice President Kamala Harris has taken a tougher stance on illegal immigration since launching her presidential campaign, trying to improve her image on the issue. She even visited the southern border late last month, but that trip marked her second there in nearly four years. Trump’s campaign has focused on tying Harris to the Biden administration’s lenient border policies.
“If we allow border czar Harris to win this election, every city, every community in this great country, is going to go to hell,” National Border Patrol Council president Paul Perez said in Prescott Valley, Ariz.
“The untold millions of people, unvetted, who she has allowed into this country that are committing murders, rapes, robberies, burglaries, and every other crime will continue to put our country in peril,” Perez added. “Only one man can fix that, and that is Donald J. Trump. He has always stood with the men and women who protect this border.”
The NBPC, which represents over 16,000 of some 20,000 Border Patrol agents, endorsed Trump during his last two presidential campaigns.
With union members by his side, Trump unveiled a plan to hire 10,000 new Border Patrol agents and ask Congress to immediately approve a 10 percent raise for all agents should he be reelected next month. The GOP nominee also said he would give border agents a $10,000 retention and signing bonus. “Haven’t had one in a long time,” Trump said while announcing the move.
Soon after taking office, President Joe Biden handed Harris immigration policy as a key piece of her vice-presidential portfolio. But rather than engaging with the lax enforcement policies that led to record illegal immigration under Biden, Harris insisted that her task was limited to addressing “root causes” of migration, which she identified as a lack of economic opportunity in Central and South America.
The Trump campaign noted that then-Senator Harris (D., Calif.) in 2018 led Democrats to reject Trump’s proposal for funding additional Border Patrol personnel.
The Border Patrol union has been critical of the Biden-Harris immigration policies that have exacerbated the border crisis. Though the White House tried making up for it with the bipartisan border-security bill, which ultimately failed after congressional Republicans pulled out of the deal, the union slammed Biden for his planned visit to Brownsville, Texas, on February 29.
Brandon Judd, the union’s president at the time, said on Fox News that Border Patrol agents were “so upset” with Biden’s visit “because he’s not going to any location where he’s going to be able to evaluate what he needs to do.”
Brownsville saw 76,000 migrant apprehensions in the first four months of fiscal year 2024, according to federal data. On the same day as Biden’s visit, Trump visited the southern border in Eagle Pass, Texas, where there were over 169,000 apprehensions during that same period.
“The past three years are all on him,” Judd said.
The Harris campaign released a statement on Sunday, accusing Trump of pushing Republicans to kill the border deal earlier this year.
“Trump doesn’t care about solving problems, he only wants to run on one,” campaign spokesman Matt Corridoni said. “That’s why he killed the bipartisan border bill that would’ve secured the border, despite the fact that it was endorsed by the Border Patrol.
“There’s only one candidate focused on tackling issues for the American people, has taken on transnational gangs, and is focused on keeping our communities safe,” Corridoni concluded, referring to Harris.
Though the Biden administration claimed it needed legislation to secure the southern border, Biden undid Trump’s border policies through executive action immediately after taking office and had the authority to revive those policies at any time.
Biden ended up taking a step in that direction in June, signing an order to crack down on the record number of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border. At the time, the order required the border to be closed to new asylum applicants once encounters reached 2,500 per day. For the restrictions to be lifted, the daily numbers were required to average below 1,500 per day for seven consecutive days.
The Biden administration recently unveiled new rules, ordering that the daily numbers must stay below 1,500 daily encounters for nearly a month before the restrictions can be lifted. The changes went into effect on October 1, making it tougher for immigrants to apply for asylum in the U.S.