US Elections 2024: Kamala Harris admits ‘broken’ immigration system, calls for stricter measures

US Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris recently admitted in an interview that the US immigration system is “broken”, that needs “to be fixed”. The issue of immigration continues to be a hot-topic on both Republican nominee Donald Trump and Harris's agenda, as they are set to face each other in the US Presidential polls in November.

According to a report by NBC news, Kamala Harris will call for enhanced security measures including new fentanyl detection machines and more Border Patrol agents. Harris also plans to press the Chinese government to do more crack down on companies that make the precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl, stated the report.

Stricter asylum restrictions

Kamala Harris has further planned to go farther than Biden's executive action to tackle the issue of illegal immigration.

According to Joe Biden's latest regulations, if border encounters rise above a 7-day average of 1,500, then migrants crossing the border illegally cannot apply for asylum. Harris, on the other hand is looking for a lower average number, to lodge stricter border security measures.

The US has a record of 10 million illegal border crossings since Biden took office. The April 2024 U.S Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data showed that Southwest border encounters exceeded 179,000, while total nationwide encounters exceeded 247,000. The CBP data also showed that encounters at Southwest border ports of entry in April 2024 grew nearly 100 percent as compared to April 2021.

‘Run on a problem…fix the border’

In discussing immigration, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have increasingly thrown flak at each other as the US polls near.

Kamala Harris has increasingly attacked Trump over his efforts to kill a bipartisan border funding deal this year. “He killed a bill that would have actually been a solution because he wants to run on a problem,” Harris said in her MSNBC interview.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump was not far behind in his response. “She keeps talking about how she supposedly wants to fix the border,” Trump recently said at a news conference at Trump Tower. “Why didn’t she fix it almost four years ago?” questioned Donald Trump, reported NBC.

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