Trump visit to Arizona’s southern border coincides with Harris DNC nomination

SIERRA VISTA, AZ (AZFamily) – Former President Donald Trump was in Cochise County on Thursday for a tour of the border, highlighting an issue Republicans view as a significant political vulnerability for Democrats.

The visit coincides with Vice President Kamala Harris accepting the Democratic presidential nomination.

Trump visited the same stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border that his vice presidential running mate, Senator JD Vance, toured three weeks ago.

Politically, Cochise County is friendly territory for Trump. The county strongly supported him in 2020. Republicans outnumber Democrats nearly two to one by party registration.

The dynamics of Cochise County also gave Trump the opportunity to emphasize his narrative that the border is experiencing a migrant “invasion.”

Unlike other border communities, where large groups of migrants willingly surrender to law enforcement to seek asylum, the majority of encounters in Cochise County involve migrants attempting to evade capture, according to Cochise County Sheriff’s Office Det. Cody Essary. He’s a member of the Southern Arizona Border Region Enforcement Team.

Essary said cartel bosses have instructed smugglers to evade law enforcement, resulting in high-speed pursuits and crashes in the county’s population centers.

“Their concern is not with the human life that is shipped in the trunk of their car. They’re still going to drive 120 miles an hour to escape law enforcement,” he said.

Trump’s visit comes at a time when border encounters have dropped significantly from their historic highs last year, returning to levels last seen four years ago.

In July, Border Patrol recorded the fewest monthly encounters since September 2020. The Tucson Sector recorded 11,722 encounters in July, down 70 percent from the same month in 2023.

The Biden Administration attributes this drop to a new policy introduced in June that restricts border crossings.

However, some critics question have doubts. Art Del Cueto, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council labor union, said encounters typically decline in the warmer summer months. He believes the statistic may be misleading because it doesn’t accurately reflect migrants who escape.

“What you need are proper policies to stop the flow. And how do you do that? You need real consequences. Right now, there are no consequences,” Del Cueto said.

Del Cueto, who recently appeared in an ad supporting Trump, will be among the officials meeting with the former president at the border on Thursday.

He argues that fentanyl street prices have dropped as the drug has become easier to smuggle, and he places the blame on the Biden Administration.

“The policies that are preventing agents from being in the field, the policies that are forcing agents to have to be stuck in processing center, those same policies are leaving gaps in our southern border,” he said. “The only people that are making out like bandits, you would say, is the drug cartels continuing to bring methamphetamine, heroin and fentanyl into the United States.”

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