Harris struggles to defend immigration record, past criticism of border wall, in CNN town hall

Vice President Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, struggled to defend the Biden administration's immigration record and her past criticism of a border wall during the CNN town hall this week.

"Under Donald Trump, you criticized the wall more than 50 times. You called it ‘stupid, useless, and a medieval vanity project.’ Is a border wall stupid?," event host Anderson Cooper asked Harris on Wednesday night. 

"Let's talk about Donald Trump on that border wall," Harris responded, while laughing. "So remember, Donald Trump said Mexico would pay for it. Come on, they didn't. How much of that wall did he build? I think the last number I saw was about 2%. And then when it came time for him to do a photo op, you know, where he did it? In the part of the wall that President Obama built."

Cooper pointed out that Harris supported a compromise Senate bill that would apply $650 million to continue building physical border barriers.

"I pledge that I am going to bring forward that bipartisan bill to further strengthen and secure our border. Yes, I am, and I'm going to work across the aisle to pass a comprehensive bill that deals with a broken immigration system," Harris said. "America has always had migration but there needs to be a legal process for it. People have to earn it."

Cooper pressed Harris, whose portfolio as vice president has been southern U.S. border migration issues, asking if she still thinks a border wall is stupid.

"I think what he did and how he did it was, did not make much sense because he actually didn't do much of anything," she replied, referring to Trump. I just talked about that wall, right? We just talked about it. He didn't actually do much of anything."

Cooper said: "But you do want to build some wall?"

Harris replied: "I want to strengthen our border." 

The Biden-Harris administration took executive action without Congress in June of this year that impose restrictions on asylum claims at the border. Anderson asked Harris why she didn't take those steps in 2022 or 2023 when migrant encounters at the border were hitting record highs.

"Because we were working with Congress and hoping that actually we could have a long-term fix to the problem instead of a short-term fix," replied Harris, who has repeatedly said on the campaign trail that immigration reform legislation must include a path to citizenship.

The GOP-led House, Democratic-led Senate and the White House did not negotiate an immigration reform bill that included a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants in 2022 or 2023.

Republicans have argued that border security measures and asylum policy changes should be passed first, given that offering a path to citizenship could add to the influx of migrants arriving at the border.

Cooper asked Harris whether she wishes those executive actions from June would have been done in 2022 or 2023.

"I think we did the right thing," she replied.

A voter asked Harris how much money she would allocate to handle services provided to migrants who are allowed to enter the U.S. while their asylum claims move through the court system. 

A report came out on Wednesday that showed the U.S. has spent $150 billion on the migrant crisis in 2023 alone. 

Harris did not directly say how much she would be willing to spend on migrants.

Instead, she said the bipartisan Senate border deal that failed to pass would have given "more resources" toward "stemming the flow" of illegal immigrants coming to the border.

"We have to have a secure border and we have to have a comprehensive pathway to citizenship," she said.

The Trump campaign has said Biden and Harris failed to secure the border.

In an analysis of Harris' record on the border, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee said the Biden administration "set the all-time record for migrant encounters at the southern border" in fiscal 2021, 2022 and 2023.