Harris Heads to the Border, Trying to Project Toughness Against Trump

For months, Republicans have pummeled Vice President Kamala Harris over the southern border, after years of high crossing numbers and headlines about immigrants overwhelming public services under the Biden administration.

On Friday, Ms. Harris will stop along a stretch of that 2,000-mile dividing line in the political battleground of Arizona, directly confronting an issue that polls show remains a major weakness for her. It will be her first visit to the border as a presidential candidate, and her first since 2021, when she was given the diplomatic mission of tackling the root causes of migration from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Drawing attention to the border is a political risk: Former President Donald J. Trump and his Republican allies have maligned and mischaracterized Ms. Harris’s record on immigration. As vice president, she has sometimes done herself no favors on the issue, and even members of her own party panned her early efforts as clumsy. She drew criticism in particular for an interview three years ago in which she responded to a question about why she had not yet traveled to the border by saying, “I haven’t been to Europe.”

Now, the visit on Friday could offer her a chance to neutralize her vulnerability on immigration, strike a contrast with Mr. Trump on both policy and tone — and underscore that she is taking a tougher stance on border security than any other Democratic presidential candidate has in decades.

“For a long time, Democrats wouldn’t take on an issue that they were being attacked on,” said Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist who focuses on turning out Latino voters. “So her getting out there and saying, ‘No, we can be a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws at the same time’ is great