If you’re trying to follow along with the Democrats’ narrative on immigration, good luck. In the last several weeks, the media’s gone from disputing that Vice President Kamala Harris was ever “border czar” to the claim that she’s been “tough as nails” on border security. What used to be the “challenge” of millions of illegal migrants crossing into America is finally a “crisis,” according to even Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). And the man who hasn’t been in office for four years is somehow to blame for all of it.
Harris’s disinformation campaign continued at the Democratic National Convention, where she tried to talk Americans out of what they’ve seen since 2021. “Let me be clear,” she said. “After decades in law enforcement, I know the importance of safety and security, especially at our border.” This, despite the Harris-Biden plan of amnesty, which Republicans have warned will lead to absolute lawlessness.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Government Oversight and Accountability Committee, called it laughable that anyone who’s lived through this administration would think this White House is tough on the border. “I mean, that’s a joke,” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Saturday’s “This Week on the Hill.” “The Democrats are very good at theater. They’re always united. Whoever controls the Democratic Party — and … it’s definitely not Joe Biden, but whoever is in control — they coordinate with the mainstream media, and they always put together a good production. … [E]veryone’s obedient and they [stay on] message. Kamala Harris, thus far as a candidate, has been very disciplined. She sticks to the teleprompter, and she doesn’t deviate.”
But at the end of the day, Comer warned, “No matter how many times the dishonest politicians say the Democrats are tough on the border, or the dishonest media writes that the Democrats were tough on the border, I think every American knows that the Democrats have allowed the southern border to be wild, wide open, which has allowed for millions and millions of illegals to pour into this country, bringing with them fentanyl as well as a massive amount of human trafficking.”
And yet, as Perkins pointed out, Democrats — with the help of a compromised media — are trying very hard to flip the script that this administration had anything to do with the stampede of illegal immigrants. They can blame-shift all they want, Comer agreed, but “the president is the commander-in-chief. His sole responsibility is to protect the American people, [including] securing the southern border.”
As for these claims that Republicans sank the silver-bullet legislation Democrats pathetically offered as political cover, that’s baloney, Comer emphasized. Not only was the policy weak, but it was also unnecessary. “We never had to have a bill to protect the southern border when Donald Trump was president or when George W. Bush was president or even when Barack Obama was the president. That’s the job of the president and Homeland Security.”
The only reason the border is wide open, Comer continued, is because this White House wants it that way. “[This is] the policy position of the Biden-Harris administration. They want a border that’s wide open. They invite illegals to pour in across that border from all over the world. They want to get those people in this country, get them registered to vote, and get them to become active citizens in their communities.”
But the level of suffering caused by these policies, which he’s seen even in rural Kentucky, has been astounding. “You have no idea the amount of human trafficking cases that are popping up in communities in America that you would never expect. … And we’ve got to stop that. And the one way to stop that is to have a president that tells the Border Patrol, ‘Do your job. Don’t be doing administrative work. Don’t be changing diapers. Secure that border.’ And if the Border Patrol can’t do it, then allow the National Guard to do it. If the National Guard can’t do it, then focus the military there. … The number one priority for our national security right now, today should be securing that southern border. You don’t need a bill to do that. You’ve got the whole United States military, as well as the National Guard.”
As the FRC president pointed out, it isn’t that Biden or Harris have lacked the tools, it’s that they lack the “willpower and desire” to fix the problem they created.
To Democrats, this is the real area of vulnerability for Trump’s opponent. Publicly, they worry that the border is one issue where Harris can’t recast herself as moderate. Former Democratic Governor David Paterson of New York warned of this on Sunday. “She has got one real big problem: 72% percent of Americans think that the number of people crossing the border from the south is going to increase [under her]. Only 21% feel that it’s going to decrease if she is president.”
“It’s not about choice,” Paterson said, referring to the Harris campaign’s hyper-focus on abortion. “It’s not about minimum wage. … It’s about the border and, to some degree, it’s about the economy,” Paterson said.
On this, Comer agrees. “I certainly hope this is an election about the issues. And the two main issues right now are the massive inflation that’s a 100% result from the Biden-Harris big spending policies. … The second issue is … crime and the lack of southern border security. We’ve got a crime outbreak in America, especially in our big cities. And a lot of this is due to lax Democrat[ic] policies. Liberal Democrat prosecutors — like Kamala Harris when she was a prosecutor in San Francisco — [are] not securing the southern border. So I hope American people focus on that. And I hope the conservatives take this very seriously.”
And it doesn’t just matter who’s at the top of the ticket, Perkins warned, but in all the races down the ballot. The White House is important, he acknowledged, but “when you talk about the border, you look at what Texas has done to secure their border. You talk about the economy. We see some states with favorable tax policies that are growing [and] attracting jobs. And then, of course, there’s the social policy, which the Democrats have made really the top-tier issues for them: abortion [and] the transgendering of our children. A lot of these are decided by state legislatures, by attorneys generals, and Congress. So those are very important races that will be on the ballot this fall as well.”
We need a motivated conservative base, the Kentuckian insisted, “because this is going to be a close election and every vote is going to count.”
Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.
