Kamala Harris Claims She’s Tougher Than Donald Trump on Border Policies

Hello! Okay so, one, she didn't say that. The quote was:

“Our administration worked on the most significant border security bill in decades. Some of the most conservative Republicans in Washington, D.C., supported the bill. Even the Border Patrol endorsed it. It was all set to pass, but at the last minute, Trump directed his allies in the Senate to vote it down.”

There's also a quote that's a little closer, from this pretty good article about the rally where this all happened:

"Donald Trump does not care about border security — he only cares about himself," Harris said. “As president, I will bring back the border security bill that Donald Trump killed, and I will sign it into law, and show Donald Trump what real leadership looks like," she said.

So, she's not claiming she's tougher on border policy than Trump is, but it is fair to say she is pivoting to a "border security" narrative. In order to explain why she wants to pass a border bill, it is necessary to explain what is actually going on at the border. Because our media is shit, almost no one knows; I suspect she's pivoting to "border security" as a narrative because she's being attacked from the right on it, and because something genuinely does need to be done, and she wants to lay the groundwork for making the attempt. But anyway. What is happening is that there are two big problems in immigration in this country:

There's a huge backlog of asylum / deportation cases which means people stay in custody in racist and oppressive overcrowded prisons
We're rate limiting the people coming into the country (see point #1), which means a lot of asylum seekers who are trying to do it legally wind up waiting for months (maybe years now, IDK) on the other side of the Mexican border, basically just living in a big, dangerous, squalid, crime-ridden open-air field with no facilities for life, and no job, no medical care for anyone no matter how young or old, it's fuckin dangerous

There's also a problem that the whole agency in charge of the border police is for the most part made of racist people, but that one is unfixable unless Harris can fire the whole agency en masse and then find 40,000 people who want to be immigration police who are not racist. So, unfixable. The other two problems do have legislative solutions, but the Republicans blocked anything Biden did, even when he tried promising to do some cruel or racist things as a compromise in order to get them to also agree to some badly needed things (mostly, increasing ICE funding so they can at least house the people they have in better conditions, and increasing the number of judges to process cases so people don't wait for a year before their case is heard).

And, any time a Democrat tries to do anything about any of this, e.g. reducing the rate of people allowed to come across the border, or increasing the number of judges to reduce the backlog, or increasing funding for ICE, everyone on the left as far as I can tell thinks they're just being cruel on purpose for no reason and gets really mad.

So, OP: What should the Democrats do? You are (edit ~~angry~~) attacking them because they are talking about border security and trying to fix this mess. What should their messaging be instead (since you seem angry about this particular messaging, which again, you kind of have a point about "tough on the border" being a callous message in addition to feeding into the false media narrative)? And, what their legislative action?

No, no, you're wrong! The media bias fact checker bot gave it a credibility rating of "high", so the headline must be right!
/s
- And Left-Center!
Can anyone remember the bill that Trump tanked? I tried to look it up but I guess journalists didn't want to give the name of or number of the bill?
I found HR 815 on one, but that's a bill that became law, so probably a mistake?
- The bill started in the Senate and got killed there, so look for a Senate number. I don't think it ever made it to the House.
Not angry, just sharing valid news articles that are being brought up by the Right also. Your explanations and defense of Harris are appreciated Mozz.
- I had a feeling you wouldn't have an answer for what her messaging should be / what she should do instead.
  Honestly, like I say, I do sort of agree that it's off-putting and misleading messaging, and that maybe it would be better to make some sort of attempt to communicate what's actually going on and what the Democrats have been trying to do (since our media seems uninterested in doing that fairly important thing.) But, it is complex. Maybe it is right to just talk "border security", lean into that, and if people get confused but still vote for her, then whatever it is fine.
  But yes it's a bunch of shit to attack her with headlines that claim she said something she never said. IDK if she will make a genuine attempt to fix the border, but Biden did make that genuine attempt, and you attacked him with precisely the same messaging, so I think it's fair to call this one bad faith also.
  (Edit: Also I see what you meant about "angry"; I went back in fixed it in my message)

I'm not voting for a Democrat because they are "tougher" on the border. I want better border policy, not shitty draconian Republican or Biden border policy.

Considering Trump killed a bi-partisan border deal because it might make the other side look good, that's not a surprise.

https://youtu.be/0gsR001be-U#t=14s

We don’t actually want this. This is bad. Stop it.

I have good news! She's not actually doing what the headline says. IDK why the media is so shit when covering this issue but the picture that's being created (where the choices are "nothing" which is fine or "border security" which means cruelty), is wrong in both respects. See my longer top level comment.
- Biden’s current border strategy is killing migrants by forcing them into remote areas of the border. They’ve continued trumps bullshit but no one gives a shit because it isn’t Trump.
  As an example for a long time, they were keeping migrants in open air detention camps while not feeding or giving water to these migrants. Volunteers were keeping them alive. This is evil and I do not want it.
If "tough" means "focused", I'm fairly indifferent. Indiscriminately breaking up families and harrassing people because you're bigoted is not "tough", it's just hateful. It serves no real world functional purpose. And that's the policies of the right. They aren't tough, because they aren't results orientated, beyond punishing "them". I have to assume (hope) Harris is motivated more by real world cost benefit calculations and less by knee jerk stereotypes. Tough could mean fair, if she intends to apply the rules more justly, and less punativatively. If tough means more scrutiny with less prejudice, it sounds more like a better return on investment for border infrastructure.
Words are inaccurate.
It is perfectly possible to be tough on border security without treating people like sub human trash.
You can make a border more difficult to illegally bypass, while also opening the gates to more to ensure that people are documented. Turning potential "illegals" into legal immigrants. This reduces the need to try and get through the border illegally. This is obviously a very basic over view, lacking any kind of thought into policy for supporting them.
Of course, if someone's definition of tougher on border security is "fuck off, we're full", with the border having razor wire and armed guards shooting on sight, then they would disagree with the above.

To be fair, coupled in with this more draconian set of rules was an attempt to actually make the border function normally if you actually read some of the finer details. We have a massive need for more immigration judges which is causing migrants to be in camps longer and leading to more abuse as they and their families wait for rulings. Republicans have made the disfunction part of the process to keep them tortured longer and the new policy would be the first real push in over a decade to fix that. I'd also rather have a hiring wave under a Democrat than a republican. Bush created a nightmare with border patrol by advertising the positions to the public and structuring it as defending America rather than taking care of desperate people and getting them processed.

Yeah, exactly. There was some genuine cruelty in the bill, put in as an attempted compromise with the Republicans so they could get it passed (incl. making it harder to get asylum and easier to kick people out), although nothing even close to the child-stealing horror movie stuff that Trump was getting his kicks out of putting into place. But the majority of the legislation was trying to help -- increasing the number of judges so people aren't waiting in custody for over a year in a terrifyingly racist and overcrowded prison when they didn't even do anything wrong being a big one.

Why do the democrat leadership always push for right-wing causes, when they aren't in the Republican Party for a reason?

"Democrat leadership"
Fascinating
- The person being nominated is considered the leader of the party. At least it has for as long asbI can remember. Number 2, while I understand she may not have said those exact words, Biden's border bill is basically a Republican bill that only was killed to make Democrats look bad.
  Tightening the amnesty and refugee quotas won't make it better. Acknowledging that this whole border crisis is manufactured would do more.
  Fox and the rest love to lie about how much asylum seekers get paid, bur will never give that money to the people that they promote are missing out.
  Finally, moving to the right is normal campaign strategy, but there was no push to the left during the Primary stage. This is just going from center right to more right. Because Biden never was on the left.
- Do they not tend to move towards the right during election years Mozz?

Yeah this isn't an arms race you want to get involved with. You're not gonna win over any Trump voters with this when he can make them swoon by talking about total border shutdowns or hell maybe reviving the old build-a-wall rhetoric.

On the flip side, this might well alienate independent/Dem-leaning people who don't want this but whose votes you desperately need and have a chance to win over.

Not a good play imo.

Democrats can promise a river of foreign blood, and still lose the "moderate republicans", because the republicans will promise to double it.
Fascists will always vote for the real thing over diet-fascism.

That is not what she said, what a shit headline