Published on Monday, October 28, 2024
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Written by Andrew Shirley
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1 comment
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Even a majority of voters who say they plan to support Kamala Harris on November 5th support former President Donald Trump’s immigration and border security policies, according to a new Newsweek poll. has become clear.
A poll conducted earlier this month found that 53% of Kamala Harris voters said they supported a tougher approach to illegal immigration, as did 87% of Donald Trump voters. Overall, 68% of respondents said the federal government should take a tougher stance, up from 62% in the same survey in July 2023.
When asked whether the federal government has lost control of the border, 63% of respondents said yes, while only 27% said no. About half of Harris’ voters agreed that the border is out of control.
Another Gallup poll conducted earlier this year found that 55% of Americans want to reduce all immigration, not just illegal immigration. The number is the highest Gallup has measured since 2001, and the first time since 2005 that a majority of the country supported reducing legal immigration. Only 16% said they wanted more immigration.
Notably, only 26% of Democrats say they want more immigration, 28% say they want less immigration, and 41% say they want immigration levels to remain about the same. Among independents, the percentages were 17%, 50%, and 27%, respectively.
Given these results, it’s no wonder Kamala Harris has radically changed her rhetoric on immigration. During the 2020 campaign, she was one of the most vocal proponents of open borders on the campaign trail, advocating for health care for undocumented immigrants and suggesting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement be completely abolished. .
Now, Harris has vowed to get tough on illegal border crossings and prosecute drug cartels and human traffickers. During a recent CNN town hall, Harris ruled out building more sections of the border wall after calling President Trump’s signature border security proposal a “medieval vanity project” in 2019. I even refused to do it.
Regardless of the outcome on November 5th, it is clear that Trump has already won the debate over immigration and border security. Voters have seen four years of President Trump’s immigration policies and four years of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ immigration policies, and they overwhelmingly want the former, so much so that Harris is now on the fence on this issue. He is doing his best to imitate President Trump.
But voters should remember that Harris’ version of “border security” is exactly the same open borders policy the country has seen over the past four years, embellished with harsh rhetoric against illegal immigration.
A good example of this fact is the supposedly “bipartisan” border bill that Harris likes to refer to on the campaign trail. The measure, introduced in February, died in committee following dire warnings from former President Donald Trump and conservative Republicans that it was a Trojan horse for Democrats’ mass amnesty plans.
This bill would cost American taxpayers $118 billion. However, only $20 billion was allocated to immigration issues. The overwhelming majority of the funds were allocated to foreign aid, including $60 billion for Ukraine, an additional $14 billion for Israel, $10 billion for humanitarian aid in Gaza, and $2 billion for welfare for illegal immigrants. . It has nothing to do with borders.
Furthermore, much of the funding designated for “border security” would actually be used to process and release illegal aliens into the United States. The bill codified the capture and release of immigrants and required the United States to accept 5,000 illegal aliens per day, or 1.8 million people per year.
As several Republican senators pointed out when the bill was introduced, the bill would significantly expand the president’s authority to quickly grant asylum claims and would allow the Democratic White House to ensure that all people who cross the border It would allow them to claim that the border crisis was “resolved” simply by declaring that they had crossed the border. The border that was illegal is now here legally.
Additionally, the bill calls for construction of a border wall, but no direct funding is allocated. Instead, the wall would be funded from “unallocated funds” left under other provisions.
Several Senate Republicans, including some known as principled conservatives, fell for the gambit and supported the bill, allowing Harris and the media to claim the effort was “bipartisan.” made possible. But the reality is that a bipartisan majority of Americans oppose the law’s provisions, as both polls above show.
Nevertheless, Harris has revived this disastrous bill as a central theme of her immigration policy and vowed to pass it. If that’s her idea of a “tough stance on immigration,” voters can expect four more years of record-breaking illegal immigration, mass crime, and chaos in American society.
The country has only a few days left to find out whether Harris’ cynical ploy to pose as a border hawk will work.
Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and columnist for AMAC Newsline. You can read his commentary on @AA_Shirley on X.
