Harris visits key border state as immigration file triggers scrutiny: A timeline

Vice President Kamala Harris is traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona on Friday, the first time she has been to the border since her visit to El Paso in 2021, following her campaign trail of her past on the issue becomes illegal immigration.

Harris was frequently attacked by her Republican opponent. former President Trumpand the Border Patrol Union, arguing that it is weak on border security, an issue that many Republicans see as the vice president's political Achilles heel.

“After years of not only ignoring the problem but helping to create it, Vice President Kamala is finally heading to the border,” the National Border Patrol Council said in a statement. “This is nothing more than her checking the box, but what it really is is a slap in the face to the men and women who put their lives on the line every day, and also a slap in the face to the American public . Where was she?

HARRIS TRIP TO THE SOUTHERN BORDER TO FLINK A Script On Immigration Criticism

This divide highlights Vice President Kamala Harris and the southern border. (Fox News/Joe Raedle/Getty Images))

Harris' campaign has pointed to her past as a prosecutor tackling transnational criminal gangs and says she is the candidate to secure the border as she supports a bipartisan funding bill.

But Harris has a long history on immigration at the national level.

California Dreamers 2018-2019

As a California senator, Harris was on the far left of the Democratic Party on immigration and in 2018 urged her Senate colleagues to reject a Trump administration request for more funding for immigration detention beds and border patrol agents.

In a letter to senators on the Senate Budget Committee in 2018, Harris and other senators urged them to “reject President Trump's FY19 funding request for a costly and ineffective border wall, new Border Patrol agents, and a large increase in U.S. immigration personnel.” and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention beds.

“We urge you to cut funding for the administration.” ruthless immigration enforcement Operations that tear families apart and harm our economy.”

Senator Kamala Harris is pictured at a parade in California. (Obtained from Fox Digital.)

HARRIS is focused on border security and Trump is enjoying the fight

She also asked Ronald Vitiello, former President Trump's nominee to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), if he was “aware of the perception” of parallels between ICE and the KKK.

“Are you aware that there is a perception that ICE is exercising its power in a way that causes fear and intimidation, particularly among immigrants and particularly among immigrants from Mexico and Central America?” she asked again.

In recently released footage, Harris is seen chanting “Up, up with education, down, down with deportation,” at a rally also attended by now-disgraced actor Jussie Smollett.

2019 presidential election campaign

Harris ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2019. Her campaign included a promise to expand the presidency Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) by executive order granting protections to illegal immigrants brought to the United States as minors.

She said she would eliminate age requirements for applications and use parole power to create a “parole in place” program to pave the path to citizenship for these illegal immigrants.

She also promised to issue an order protecting illegal immigrant parents of American citizens and green card holders from deportation. In total, their plan was intended to protect over six million illegal immigrants from deportation.

2021: Vice President “Border Czar”

Harris became vice president in 2021 and the administration immediately rolled back a number of Trump-era initiatives and sought to impose a moratorium on deportations.

The number of migrants has been surging, and Biden told reporters in March that Harris would be tasked with tackling the root causes of issues like climate change, poverty and violence that the administration believes are driving migrants north.

This quickly led to Harris being labeled as the by media and Republicans “Border Czar.” The White House rejected that title, but it has stuck with her ever since, making her a poster child of the crisis alongside DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Summer 2021: The pressure is increasing

After Biden's order and as numbers skyrocketed to record highs in the months that followed, Harris immediately came under pressure to visit the border as the White House said her role was more diplomatic in nature and not directly related to the border limit to do. Instead, she traveled to Mexico and Guatemala and had a stern message to migrants that angered immigrant activists.

“Don’t come. Don't come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our borders,” she said. “If you come to our border, you will be turned back.”

The pressure for them to go to the US border was increasing.

“They weren’t at the border,” NBC’s Lester Holt told her after she claimed she was at the border.

“And I wasn’t in Europe,” Harris joked.

Immigrants line up at a remote U.S. Border Patrol processing center after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in Lukeville, Arizona, December 7, 2023. According to federal sources, Jesus Enrique Ramirez Cabrera entered the country illegally through Arizona in December 2023, was arrested and released in the United States (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Later that month, she traveled to the border in El Paso, Texas, where she received a briefing, toured a processing center and met with lawyers and providers.

2022: More time is needed

Harris would be largely invisible for the rest of 2021 and 2022 Cause strategyalthough a private sector initiative to mobilize investments to address these root causes would continue.

In June 2022, she traveled to the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles and met with other leaders to discuss ways to address the crisis. During that summit, she announced that $3.2 billion in commitments from private companies had been secured.

She also came under fire for declaring that the border was safe despite the ongoing crisis and mass layoffs inland.

“The border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system, particularly in the last four years before we came, and it needs to be fixed,” Harris said on NBC.

2023: More records broken

Harris made few appearances related to the border crisis in 2023, although her private investment strategy continued to bring in additional commitments from companies.

But the crisis didn't stay out of the news, and 2023 broke new records for huge volumes of migrant encounters and a series of chaotic scenes at the border.

Fiscal 2023 broke the record with over 2.4 million encounters, while December saw nearly 250,000 encounters in a single month.

2024: Support for bipartisan bill, run for president

While the White House continued to reject the “border czar” narrative, Harris supported a bipartisan Senate agreement to provide more funding for the border and reduce the number of migrants when it reaches a certain level.

She also supported a series of executive orders from President Biden that would impose limits on asylum and efforts to create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who are spouses of U.S. citizens.

She has tried to portray herself as tougher on the border than former President Trump.

With a stop in Douglas, Arizona, she wants to show that she is better prepared than Trump to tackle the explosive issue of immigration and what Republicans have spotlighted as a crisis at the southern border.

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“We need a comprehensive plan,” Harris said in an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday. “That includes what we need to do to not only fortify our border, but also deal with the fact that we need to create pathways for people to gain citizenship.”

Along with the border shutdown, the Harris campaign is launching a new commercial that will run in Arizona and other battleground states highlighting its previous border efforts and plans.

“She put cartel members and drug traffickers behind bars and will secure our border,” says the narrator in the commercial.

Fox News' Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

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