Border deal Democrat flips script on Harris’s role as immigration ‘czar’

The Senate Democrat who negotiated a failed immigration deal with Republicans is urging his party to embrace Vice President Kamala Harris’s role on the border in the face of an onslaught of GOP attacks.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), like other Democrats, has cried foul over the “border czar” moniker given to Harris as Republicans attempt to tie her to President Joe Biden’s record on the issue. The president tasked Harris with investigating the root causes of illegal immigration in the early days of his administration, but the assignment quickly became a stumbling block for Harris as the number of crossings soared to record levels.

Democrats have attempted to minimize the role she played in that influx as she runs to replace Biden in the White House, noting her job was limited to exploring the socioeconomic conditions that prompt migrants to flee Northern Triangle countries in the first place. But Murphy is crediting her directly for what has become a precipitous drop in crossings over the last several months.

Border Patrol apprehended almost 84,000 migrants in June, a 16% decrease from the same month a year ago and two-thirds lower than the record high of 250,000 in December.

“Kamala Harris was given a job to reduce migration from Central America, and she did it incredibly well, stunningly well,” Murphy told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday.

“She was not put in charge of immigration policy or the border,” he added. “She was put in charge of reducing the root causes of migration from Central America and Mexico, and she did that in a way that made a huge difference.”

Murphy has taken an aggressive posture on the border since a deal he brokered with Senate Republicans and the White House fell apart earlier this year.

The GOP argues the agreement had loopholes that allowed illegal crossings to remain high, even as it set aside money for additional Border Patrol agents. But Democrats have used Republicans’ opposition to frame them as standing in the way of bipartisan solutions on immigration.

Murphy has led the charge on that critique, pressing for and ultimately winning a doomed-to-fail Senate vote on the deal in May that separated it from a larger foreign aid package.

And Harris herself has begun to rebut the attacks against her. On Tuesday night, she cited her prosecution of drug cartels while serving as California attorney general to pitch herself as tough on the border. She also pledged to sign the immigration deal into law if she becomes president.

“I think we should go toe-to-toe with the Republicans on immigration policy,” Murphy said, lamenting that Democrats have historically “cowered in a corner” when the topic comes up.

“We should not do that, nor do we need to do that this election,” he added, citing the “very effective job” Harris had done. As vice president, Harris made trips to Central America and was tasked with bringing economic investment to the region.

“Immigration policy can be a strength, not a liability, for Democrats,” Murphy said.

Strategic decisions Harris makes in the coming days will signal how big of a liability she, in fact, considers the border attacks to be. If she chooses Sen. Mark Kelly, a centrist border state Democrat from Arizona, as her running mate, it could help insulate her from the critique.

Already, Republicans have made clear the issue will be the centerpiece of their campaign against her. The Trump campaign has begun airing ads blaming a “dangerously liberal” Harris for the record influx, while Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), former President Donald Trump’s running mate, will visit the Arizona border on Thursday morning.

The drop in illegal crossings could blunt the argument against her. Biden implemented some of the border deal’s policies via executive order in June and has had success convincing Mexico to interdict more migrants before they ever reach the United States.

But Republicans believe the administration demonstrated to the public it is not serious about border security when it undid a raft of Trump-era policies when Biden took office in 2021.

“They’ve had years to be able to take things on, and there’s some changes that have happened to decrease the numbers recently, but most likely, that’s cartels choking that down knowing that if they get a President Trump, then they’re in trouble,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who helped broker the Senate border deal with Murphy.

The pivot to the center on immigration is newer for Harris. In her 2020 run for president, she flirted with calls to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement and has previously advocated downgrading the penalty for crossing the border illegally to a civil offense.

But her attempts to shake the “border czar” scrutiny are hardly new. She made a trip to the southern border in 2021 following media attention on her handling of the issue and famously quipped that she hadn’t visited Europe either when asked days earlier about why she had not yet gone.

Murphy argued that Democrats should make more trips to the border when asked about Vance’s visit, with the caveat that he is “not going to give advice to the Harris campaign on their political strategy.”

Biden made his own trip to the border in February, a move meant to preempt Trump’s visit the same day.

“I’m just speaking for myself. I’m going to be down at the border,” Murphy said. “I’m going to be highlighting this issue because I think it’s one that we shouldn’t cede the advantage to Republicans.”