NACO, Ariz. (KGUN) — The Trump Campaign has leaned hard on border issues to bash the Biden administration, and now the Harris campaign. Republican VP candidate JD Vance came to Cochise County Thursday morning to hear from people who live near the border—and to blame what he's calling the Harris Administration for border troubles.
If you watch political ads, you may see images of the border wall as much as you see the candidates themselves. Vance came to Southern Arizona today to see the border, and the wall, for himself.
A trip to the border wall is standard campaigning for any candidate who wants to blast the current administration about immigration and cross-border crime.
Now that Joe Biden has stepped aside as the Democrat’s nominee and endorsed Harris to replace him, Vance has made a point to blame border trouble on Harris herself.
MORE | Democrats respond to Vance's border visit
"Kamala Harris came into office making promises and she kept those promises to open the American Southern border. They stopped deportations on Day One. They stopped construction of the border wall on Day One. We see the border wall sitting here ready to be completed behind us and that can't happen because of Kamala Harris's Administration,” Vance said during his remarks to the press and other invitees.
WATCH: VANCE'S FULL REMARKS HERE
The Vance team planned for a 20-minute briefing to hear from people who live their lives on the border, including John Ladd. His family was ranching along the border long before Arizona was even a state.
”You go back 35 years ago, we'd get one or two guys a month who wanted to work and then they’d go home,” Ladd said.
Ladd says since that time, smuggling has become a big dangerous business crossing his ranch.
“Border Patrol’s got a half million people on our ranch in 30 years. With Trump it was maybe five a week and with Biden it’s every day 24 hours a day—but it’s smaller groups, one or two. None of them are seeking asylum. They’re not family units, they’re military-aged males,” said Ladd.
He’s seen smugglers saw through the wall, let people through, then return the piece and hope Border Patrol won’t find it.
Ladd says his top priority would be to reinstate policy that holds asylum seekers in Mexico while courts consider their claims. His number two priority would be to complete the border wall.
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