Arizona Dems say Trump's trip to the border today is nothing more than a photo-op

Arizona Democrats are calling former President Donald Trump’s planned visit to the Arizona border Thursday nothing more than a photo op, after he blew up a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year.

Trump is set to make a campaign stop in Cochise County, to visit the state’s border with Mexico.

“He likes to make a trip (to the border), it seems, about once a year to get his picture taken by the fence,” U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly said during an Aug. 21 call with journalists.

And Kelly said he believes that Americans see through Trump’s posturing.

“They know that there’s only one person who is actually interested in finding some real solutions to solving the issues at our border, and that is Vice President (Kamala) Harris,” Kelly said.

Ahead of his visit to Arizona, Trump’s campaign blamed Harris for the border crisis, including “crime and chaos caused by illegal immigrants” and overdoses of the opioid fentanyl that has been trafficked into the country from Mexico.

According to the United States Sentencing Commission, 86% of people sentenced for trafficking fentanyl from 2017 through 2021 were U.S. citizens.

“President Donald J. Trump knows that the people of Arizona and the rest of the country cannot take another four years of a missing-in-action border Czar who refuses to act to secure our border and protect our country,” the Trump campaign wrote in an email. “President Trump will Make America Great Again by stopping the migrant invasion and carrying out the largest deportation operation in American history.”

But Kelly and Bisbee Mayor Ken Budge, both Democrats, castigated Trump for running on a promise to secure the border after he told Republicans in the U.S. Senate not to vote for a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year.

Trump urged Senate Republicans not to support the proposed legislation because he wanted to campaign on the issue, and didn’t want to hand a win to President Joe Biden. Some progressive Democrats and members of the Hispanic Caucus also criticized the bill for providing too many concessions to Republicans.

The bill was aimed at reducing border crossings, bolstering restrictions for asylum seekers and would have allowed the government to sanction and seize the assets of those involved in the fentanyl supply chain.

Kelly characterized Trump’s ordering Republicans to kill the bill as “one of the most hypocritical things I’ve seen.”

He added that, if Harris is elected president, she has promised to sign a bipartisan border security bill, which will include higher pay for border patrol agents as well as funding to hire more agents.

Kelly accused Trump and Vance of wanting to campaign on the issue of border security, without a desire to actually address the issues.

“When that border bill blew up, I just couldn’t stand it any longer,“ Budge said, acknowledging that the bill wasn’t perfect but that he believed it would have “produced results.”

Budge said that it’s important to keep the flow of commerce open between border cities like Bisbee and sister cities in Mexico, and that the mass deportations that Trump has promised if he’s elected would make Latinos feel targeted and separate families.

Both Kelly and Budge avoided directly answering a question from a reporter about whether Harris would visit the border. Trump has repeatedly criticized Harris for failing to make the trip.

“Just to have your picture taken with a big, rusty wall behind you, I don’t think accomplishes anything,” Budge said.

Instead, Harris is hearing — through surrogates — from the people and leaders of border cities, which Budge said was more important.

In late July, mayors of some left-leaning Arizona border cities — Bisbee, Nogales, Somerton and San Luis — endorsed Harris.

Those mayoral positions are nonpartisan, but Jorge Maldonado, the mayor of Nogales, spoke alongside Trump-backed Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Kari Lake during her “Mama Bear Border Tour” last November.

After speakers last night at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago called out Trump for the part he played in blowing up the border security bill, he lashed out at Harris via social media.

“Tomorrow, I will be going to the Southern Border to address the plague of Migrant Crime and Migrant Rape that so-called Border Czar, Comrade Kamala Harris, has unleashed on America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, a social media site that he founded. “This nightmare ends, and ends immediately, with our VICTORY in November!”

The Trump campaign also sent out emails placing the blame on Harris for a “porous border” and for releasing “criminals and terrorists” into the country.

It’s true that unauthorized border crossings spiked during Biden’s first three years as president, before seeing a steep drop this year. But those numbers were influenced by many factors, including the end of COVID-19 lockdowns and turmoil in multiple Latin American countries.

In June, Biden issued an executive order that barred most immigrants who entered the country illegally from seeking asylum, a move that was criticized by Republicans as “too little, too late” and by progressives as a betrayal of Biden’s promises of humane action at the border.

Unaccompanied children are exempt, along with victims of human trafficking, people with visas, people with medical emergencies or those who report serious threats to their lives.

After his visit to the border today, Trump is hosting a campaign rally at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale on Friday, the same venue where Harris drew a crowd of approximately 15,000 supporters on Aug. 9.

Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on Facebook and X.