Immigration
The other burden that Kamala carried was Biden’s record on immigration. Although Kamala was unfairly labeled the ‘border tzar’ a title she never had, nonetheless she was strongly associated in the minds of millions of people with immigration failure, and Donald Trump, largely succeeded in setting the terms of the debate by attacking his Democratic rival, with hyperbolic claims that she supported “open borders” and false accusations that the US is experiencing a wave of violent crimes committed by migrants. The number of migrants crossing the US border with Mexico has grown significantly over the past 15 years. And the presence of tens of thousands of migrants in cities across the US – some 120,000 of them having been bussed to northern US cities by Texas Governor Abbott since the summer of 2022 – ‘lends plausibility to the dominant framing that immigration is a problem to be solved, rather than a complex phenomenon to be managed, let alone an opportunity for maintaining economic growth and national vitality’.[87]
America has a long history of xenophobia and a proud tradition, often extolled at civic events and graduations, of being a “nation of immigrants.” These two features of US culture sit uneasily in the minds of Americans and the pendulum of public opinion swings between them. Free traders and libertarians favour immigration while cultural conservatives fear it. Economists almost universally explain the benefits of immigration while unions and local governments worry, rightly, about pressure on social services and jobs. Opposition to immigration can come from xenophobes and those who fear that immigration will generate xenophobia.
in the 2024 election the saliency of immigration in the minds of millions of Americans as well as the fact that there was a surge in immigration on America’s southern border in the first years of the Biden Presidency were inescapable for the Harris campaign. In Biden’s defense, this was unfair. The jump in immigration under Biden had much to do with the ending of COVID restrictions on travel. Trump had rallied Republicans early in 2024 to block a $118 billion bipartisan Senate bill that tied border reforms to Ukraine aid. From May 2023, Biden officials deported or returned roughly 740,000 people to Mexico and other countries, more than any year since 2010, according to the Department of Homeland Security.[88] The increases in migrant figures seen at the US-Mexico border since 2020 came at a time when, globally, migration to rich countries is at an all-time high. Finally, immigrants crossing the border fell in the Summer of 2024.
But, Biden had ended many of Trump’s restrictions which even though these were widely condemned as cruel, particularly the separation of parents and children his administration still enforced a strict border policy, it led to the unshakable perception of failure. By 2024 polls consistently showed that more than two-thirds of Americans disapproved of Biden's handling of the issue. This disapproval also included those who felt Biden had failed to find a humane and comprehensive alternative to Trump’s policies. Biden had managed to generate the disapproval of opponents and supporters of immigration.