Kamala Harris, who has been largely absent from the southern border throughout her tenure as vice president, is now promising to take action against the fentanyl crisis. However, her newfound interest in border security is being met with skepticism as Americans remember her role as border czar — a role in which she failed to make any real impact.
Harris recently visited Douglas, Arizona, promising to “stop the flow of illegal fentanyl.” But critics argue that her administration’s open border policies allowed the fentanyl crisis to spiral out of control in the first place. From 2021 to 2023, more than 325,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, with fentanyl playing a significant role in many of those deaths.
Families impacted by the crisis, like Anne Fundner, have placed the blame squarely on Harris and President Joe Biden. Fundner testified to Congress that her son’s death from fentanyl was a direct result of the administration’s failure to secure the border. She accused Harris of ignoring the problem for years, only to show interest now that the 2024 election looms.
Harris’ shifting position on immigration has not gone unnoticed. In 2019, she supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings to align with her party’s left-wing base. Now, she’s claiming to be tough on the border, a move many see as an attempt to appeal to centrist voters as she prepares to run for president.
For many, Harris’ sudden interest in the border crisis feels insincere. After years of neglecting the issue, her newfound focus seems more like a political calculation than a genuine effort to solve the problem.
