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Vance, speaking in front of the border wall in the town of
Hereford, called Harris a failed "border czar" and said she
should have worked with U.S. agencies to deal with illegal
crossings, even though Harris was tasked with a narrower role of
addressing migration from Northern Central America.
"Kamala Harris as border czar was asked to coordinate all these
functions in government and she's done nothing," he said.
Republicans have tried to hold Harris responsible for high
levels of illegal immigration under President Joe Biden, a
Democrat who dropped his presidential bid last month. Biden's
exit paved the way for Harris to become the likely nominee.
Harris has responded by emphasizing her support for a bipartisan
U.S. Senate border security bill introduced earlier this year.
Republicans rejected the bill after Trump came out in
opposition.
"Donald Trump does not care about border security," Harris said
during a speech in Atlanta on Tuesday. "He only cares about
himself."
While the number of migrants caught illegally crossing the
border soared to record levels under Biden, they have plummeted
since Biden issued new border restrictions in June. U.S. Border
Patrol caught around 57,000 migrants crossing illegally in July,
two U.S. officials told Reuters, the lowest monthly total since
September 2020 when Trump was still president.
Vance, a Republican U.S. senator from Ohio who often speaks of
his childhood exposure to drug addiction, said Harris' policies
had allowed fentanyl to enter the U.S. although most convicted
fentanyl traffickers in recent years were U.S. citizens.
Vance said American children "feel overwhelmed with migrant
children who shouldn't be there" and that hospital wait times
"have exploded" because migrants are seeking healthcare.
The Trump campaign did not immediately provide supporting
evidence for either assertion.
"The human toll of this is the thing that we cannot forget,"
Vance said.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington and Go Nakamura in
Hereford, Arizona; Editing by Mary Milliken and Daniel Wallis)
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