WASHINGTON, Sept 27: US Vice President Kamala Harris travels to the US-Mexican border Friday to try to show she is tough on migration, a key election issue on which Donald Trump has dramatically stepped up his incendiary rhetoric in recent weeks.
Harris's visit to Douglas in Arizona is her first to the border since she replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate in July, and comes as Republican Trump repeatedly attacks her for being weak on illegal border crossings.
False and racist claims about migrants by Republicans, and former president Trump's promises of mass expulsions, have turbocharged the issue in a close-fought White House race that is less than six weeks away.
Harris's campaign said she would call for tougher border security measures in a speech at the border in Douglas, and blame Trump for killing off Biden's efforts to pass a recent bipartisan bill on migration.
"The American people deserve a President who cares more about border security than playing political games," she plans to say, according to her campaign.
The Democrat accuses Trump of lobbying Republicans in the US Congress to tank the bill, which would have given more funding to border security, because he feared it would hurt him politically. —AFP
