Vice President Kamala Harris is planning to visit the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday during a trip to Arizona, according to two people briefed on the preparations, as she seeks to counter former President Donald J. Trump’s advantage with voters on the issue of immigration.
The trip is set to be her first visit to the southern border since President Biden dropped out of the race.
Ms. Harris may give remarks about border issues during the visit, according to the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a trip that has not yet been made public. The people said final details about exactly where Ms. Harris would visit or what else she might do on the trip have not been decided. The Harris campaign did not immediately provide a comment.
Mr. Trump and Republicans have blamed Ms. Harris for the large numbers of migrants crossing into the United States from Mexico over the past several years. Early in his administration, Mr. Biden made Ms. Harris responsible for addressing the root causes of migration from Latin America.
But she struggled in that role and drew criticism after telling the NBC News host Lester Holt in a 2021 interview, when he asked why she had not yet visited the southern border, that she had “never been to Europe” either. The Trump campaign has used that exchange in advertisements attacking her record on immigration. Ms. Harris traveled to the border soon after her interview with Mr. Holt.
In recent months, border crossings have fallen to their lowest levels since she and Mr. Biden took office.
A significant slice of voters believe Mr. Trump would better handle immigration. In a New York Times/Siena College poll of three Sun Belt states, including Arizona, 54 percent of likely voters said they trusted Mr. Trump more on the issue, compared with 43 percent for the vice president.
Mr. Trump maintains a narrow lead in Arizona, a key battleground state, according to a Times polling average. The state has a large number of Hispanic voters, a group among which Ms. Harris has recovered some support since replacing Mr. Biden on the ticket. But she is still polling below the traditional Democratic benchmark.
Ms. Harris is also expected to appear at a fund-raising event on Saturday in San Francisco and another on Sunday in Los Angeles. She is set to close her West Coast swing this weekend with a campaign event in Nevada.
Broadly, she has tried to sway voters who are skeptical of her approach to immigration by saying that she believes both in securing the border and in providing an “earned pathway to citizenship” for undocumented immigrants. And she has highlighted her role in pursuing transnational criminal groups during her time as attorney general of California.
Speaking at a Congressional Hispanic Caucus event last week, she warned that Mr. Trump would follow through on his promises to detain and deport vast numbers of undocumented immigrants if he is elected.
“Imagine what that would look like and what that would be,” Ms. Harris said. “How’s that going to happen? Massive raids? Massive detention camps? What are they talking about?”
She has also pointed out that Mr. Trump leaned on his Republican allies in Congress to kill a bipartisan border security deal this year, accusing him of playing politics.
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