Kamala Harris visits the border

Today Kamala Harris visited the border in Arizona and proposed a tougher plan to limit illegal immigration. Of course she's also the current Vice President in the administration with one of if not the worst immigration records in US history. She is essentially promising that, if elected, she will clean up her own mess. This really ought to be embarrassing to all involved, but she seems to be getting the serious headlines she wanted out of it.

Harris’s proposed executive action would build on President Joe Biden’s current policy of essentially closing the U.S. asylum system unless illegal border crossings stay below 1,500 daily crossings for a week. Harris would lower that threshold and extend the period it must be met, though exact figures were not immediately available.

The action might have a limited practical impact, at least in the short term, but the proposal is designed to send a message that Harris is taking a more assertive immigration posture than the administration in which she serves, and that she is not ceding the issue to Donald Trump, who consistently scores higher marks among voters on border security and immigration.

This was a photo op and a nakedly political attempt to deceive voters.

Harris walked along the U.S. border with Mexico on Friday alongside a stretch of border wall built during the Obama administration, talking with border officials about their work.

It was a photo op meant to illustrate that she supports border security — one of the biggest concerns voters have about Harris — and to try to defang criticism from her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump.

“They’ve got a tough job and they need, rightly, support to do their job. They are very dedicated. And so I'm here to talk with them about what we can continue to do to support them," Harris told reporters.

I think the dumbest headline I've seen, published before she even got to the border is this one at the Daily Beast: "Kamala Harris Shoves the Migrant Border Crisis in Trump’s Face." Um, sure. SLAY QUEEEEEN!

Meanwhile, Vox reports there are some pretty miserable progressives who would be tempted to complain if they actually believed what she is saying. Fortunately, they know better.

There’s a “real tension that exists in our movement right now,” Vanessa Cárdenas, a longtime strategist and executive director of the pro-immigrant America’s Voice group, told me. “We are concerned about the emphasis on the border, but we also understand that [Kamala Harris] is our best conduit to move things ahead toward the goal that we all want.”...

some groups are hoping that Harris’s more hardline stance is temporary — rhetoric needed in changing times — and that she’ll end up being more liberal as president.

“We all know and trust Harris to make the right decisions when she’s in office,” Kerri Talbot, the executive director of the liberal Immigration Hub group, told Axios earlier this month...

Some progressives on the Hill feel the same way. “When we are in the majority in the House, and hopefully keep the Senate, and keep the White House, we can scratch that Senate bill and actually create a Democratic bill that addresses the root causes at the border and that really focuses on humanitarian relief and actual solutions,” Illinois Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez told me. “But we will be in a different circumstance come from January.”

The real Kamala Harris is not going to be tough on the border. As Fox News points out, she has a long history on this topic.

Harris, as a California senator, was on the far-left of the Democratic Party on immigration, and in 2018 she pushed her colleagues in the Senate to reject a request by the Trump administration for more funding for immigration detention beds and Border Patrol agents...

In recently revealed footage, Harris is seen...chanting "Up, up with education, down, down with deportation" at a rally which also featured now-disgraced actor Jussie Smollett...

Harris launched a bid for the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 2019. Her campaign included a promise to expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) by executive order, which gives protection to illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as minors.

Her recent flip-flop on immigration isn't remotely credible. But she just has to fool some of the voters for a few weeks to get into office and most of the media seems content to let her try.