Kamala Harris’s border security plan promises 1,500 extra border agents — which adds just one single on-shift border patrol officer for every five miles of the 1,933-mile southern border.
The extra force of 1,500 hires “is 300 or 400 more agents on the border [per shift] — or one more agent for every five miles, at best,” responded Ken Cuccinelli, the former acting border chief under President Donald Trump.
Only about 20 percent of agents are on a border shift at any particular time, said Tom Homan, a former top official at President Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
So the addition of 1,500 extra agents “won’t move the needle … it is ridiculous” Homan told Breitbart News. “By the time you site these agents on the northern border, southern border, and on the maritime control, it makes zero difference.”
The far easier fix is to restore the border policies established by President Donald Trump, Homan said, adding:
They’re going down a rabbit hole here –you can secure the border with the same number of agents and the same number of immigration judges. All they have to do is change policies.
But the promise of 1,500 more officers is the most-touted claim in Harris’s campaign trail pitches on border security.
For example, she touted the number during the September 19 presidential debate:
The United States Congress, including some of the most conservative members of the United States Senate, came up with a border security bill which I supported. And that bill would have put 1,500 more border agents on the border to help those folks who are working there right now over time trying to do their job. It would have allowed us to stem the flow of fentanyl coming into the United States.
The 1,500 number was a sweetener in the giveaway-border bill pushed by Senate Democrats in January. The bill would have massively raised the inflow of economic migrants by several routes through the border, including the required “catch-and-release” of migrants who claim to be seeking asylum. “It was an amnesty bill,” Cuccinelli said.
On September 25, she told CNN:
Months ago, some of the most conservative members of the United States Congress came together with others, proposed a border security bill that would have put 1,500 new border agents on the border to help those hardworking border agents who are there right now working around the clock … When elected president, if the American people will have me, I will bring that bill back and I will sign it into law.
“She’s playing a game, typical political gamesmanship,” Homan said.
“It’s worse even than that,” said Cuccinelli, adding:
What they’re really running at the border is a humanitarian operation to get [migrant] people in. So when she sends more Border Patrol to the border, that’s just more human-services people to usher in the [migrants] she wants to parole and make citizens.
“She doesn’t want 1,500 new agents to keep people out — she wants 1500 new agents to help move people in,” Cuccinelli added.
Behind the campaign PR, there is little or no evidence that Harris will reverse the pro-migration policies set by President Joe Biden’s powerful border czar, Alejandro Mayorkas.
In September, the House-impeached border chief told a Texas audience:
We look to the north, with Canada. Canada takes a look at its market needs, and it says, “You know what? We need 700,000 foreign workers to address our labor needs domestically.” And, so, they build a visa system for that year to address the current market condition. And they say, “We’re going to bring in a million people.” And it’s market sensitive.
We [in the United States] are dealing with numerical caps on labor-driven visas that were set in 1996. It’s 2024. The world has changed. It is remarkable how there can be [elite] agreement that [the visa system] is broken and not have an agreement on a solution. The country is suffering as a result of it.
Pro-migration advocates view Harris’s “tough” claims as just a campaign strategy, and they expect Harris will support their pro-migration goals, according to multiple media reports.
“We know, based on where she’s been in the past, that her policies are probably going to be aligned with UnidosUS’ policies,” Carmen Feliciano, the advocacy chief for UnidosUS, a pro-migration group formerly named LaRaza, told Politico in August.
