She is scheduled to appear in Douglas, Arizona, as former President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans pound Harris relentlessly over the Biden administration's record on border security which has seen millions of people from more than 150 countries invade the country.
Immigration and border security are top issues in Arizona, the only battleground state that borders Mexico and one that contended with a record number of illegals last year. Trump has an edge with voters on migration, and Harris has gone on offense to improve her standing on the issue and defuse a key line of political attack for Trump.
In nearly every campaign speech she gives, Harris recounts how a sweeping bipartisan package aiming to overhaul the federal immigration system collapsed in Congress earlier this year after Trump urged top Republicans to oppose it.
"The American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games,” Harris plans to say, according to an excerpt of her remarks previewed by her campaign.
The vice president’s trip to Douglas thrusts the issue of immigration into the brightest spotlight yet less than six weeks before Election Day.
Trump didn’t wait for her to arrive there before pushing back.
On Thursday, he delivered a lengthy criticism from New York, declaring that “anything she says tomorrow, you know is a fraud because she was the worst in history at protecting our country. So she’ll try and make herself look a little bit better. But it’s not possible."
A day earlier, at a rally in North Carolina, Trump told voters that “when Kamala speaks about the border, her credibility is less than zero."
The Trump campaign has also countered with its own TV ads deriding the vice president as a failed “border czar.”
“Under Harris, over 10 million illegally here,” said one spot. However, estimates on how many people have entered the country illegally since the start of the Biden administration in 2021 vary widely.
Polls show that most American trust him to handle border security more than they do Harris.
