Vice presidential nominee and Ohio U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) will travel to Arizona on Thursday to tour the U.S.-Mexico border, the Trump campaign announced.
Vance will visit the border in Cochise County, which is part of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Tucson Sector.
So far in Fiscal Year 2024, the Tucson Sector has experienced 428,876 total migrant encounters, an 82.8 percent increase from Fiscal Year 2023’s encounters.
Last week alone, the U.S. Border Patrol working in the Tucson Sector apprehended 2,400 migrants, handled 244 federal criminal cases, stopped 42 human smuggling incidents, rescued 15 migrants in distress, seized 10 pounds of cocaine, intercepted additional narcotics on 11 separate occasions, seized two firearms, and made one “significant” arrest.
The Trump campaign cited Vice President Kamala Harris’ failed work as “border czar” for the record-high monthly encounters along the southern border.
“For 39 months straight since weak, failed, and dangerously liberal Kamala Harris became Joe Biden’s border czar, monthly encounters have routinely surpassed the highest month under President Trump’s administration. Since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office, nearly 10 MILLION illegal immigrants have crossed into our country,” the campaign said in a press release on Tuesday.
The campaign painted a grim outlook for future border numbers under a potential Harris presidency – as the vice president is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee following President Joe Biden’s exit from the 2024 race.
“To make matters worse, if elected, Kamala Harris promises to decriminalize illegal border crossings and take executive action to provide mass amnesties for millions of illegal immigrants,” the campaign said.
If elected in November, the Trump campaign said the former president and Vance would work to “secure our border, begin the largest deportation operation in American history, and restore law and order to our country.”
– – –
Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
