Biden asked Harris to tackle the 'root causes' of migration. Here's what happened after that.
NBCJUL 2024
US Election Issue: Immigration
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The Spin
Republican narrative
Harris has demonstrated her approach to immigration as vice president to Biden over the last four years. First, the administration proposed giving citizenship to all 11M unauthorized migrants. Then, when that was shot down in Congress, the Democratic-led Senate offered a laughable compromise of providing citizenship to "only" 6M of this population — the whole time keeping the border wide open for millions more to come in. Trump's "America First" perspective is a sound and secure approach.
Democratic narrative
As vice president, Harris has created forward-looking policies rather than unrealistic one-size-fits-all solutions. She's worked with Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador to fix the underlying issues causing migrants to flee their home countries. As millions of victimized people seek a better life in America, it's up to the next president to create a system that welcomes those in need while blocking wrongdoers. Harris will do that, while Trump will simply criminalize all immigrants based on xenophobia.
Cynical narrative
Though both parties use immigration as a political prop to rouse their respective constituencies, unauthorized migration serves the interests of the US economic elite, as undocumented workers provide cheap labor in several crucial industries. Big business, which spends millions to influence US politics, consistently uses undocumented labor, as the migrants face all of the risks while companies reap the economic reward. The gridlock surrounding much-needed immigration reform only serves the interests of those who profit from undocumented labor — on both sides of the aisle.