Record number of illegal migrants has entered the United States in recent years. Harris has since 2021 tasked with reducing migration by solving the basic problem of why people come to the United States in particular, including by creating more jobs in countries like Honduras.
Although Harris was not in charge of border security, Republicans have criticized her for failing to stem the tide of migration and have given her the epithet “Border Czar.”
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“The Biden government has failed”
During the debate, Trump accused the current presidential administration of destroying the country’s security and economy through poor immigration policies.
– The Biden government has failed with its border policy and the economy has definitely been affected in some parts of the country, but there is nothing to indicate that security has been affected as drastically as Trump claims, says SVT’s foreign reporter Stefan Åsberg,
During the debate, Trump claimed that millions of people, including criminals, are pouring into the country and taking jobs from Americans.
– Many believe that these migrants play an extremely important role in the American labor market. Often they take the lowest paid jobs that are difficult to attract labor to, explains Åsberg.
Harris tried to avoid the migration issue
Harris criticized Trump for blocking a Democratic bill that would have increased the number of border patrol agents and provided resources to fight drug and people smuggling.
– The Republicans are actually behind the bill, but chose not to support it. The reason is that it risked damaging Trump’s election campaign because he wants to keep the migration crisis as a hot election issue, says Åsberg.
Harris avoided answering the question about why the flow of migration has not been stopped. She chose instead to highlight her own experience in prosecuting transnational criminal organizations.
– The migration issue is one of Harris’s weakest points. She alone cannot be blamed for this failure, but she has had a big role in the work that more or less proved to be fruitless, says Stefan Åsberg.
During the debate, Trump claimed that migrants in Springfield are eating local residents’ pets.
Watch the video above to find out how the claim was born and who it has been spread by.