By Jasper Ward and Nandita Bose
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Vice President Kamala Harris will visit the U.S. border with Mexico on Friday, the White House said on Wednesday, in her first visit to the politically contentious southern border since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.
During her trip to Douglas, Arizona, Harris plans to speak about border security and how she is pushing "the toughest bipartisan border security plan in a generation," a campaign aide said, adding that the plan includes new border agents and technologies to stop fentanyl.
"As a former attorney general from a border state, she took on international gangs and criminal organizations who traffic drugs, guns and human beings, and she has long believed we need an immigration system that is secure, fair, orderly and humane, a stark contrast from the divisive and dangerous politics of Donald Trump," the campaign aide said.
Harris was California's attorney general before being elected to the U.S. Senate and then in 2020 vice president. She visited the border in 2021.
Trump, Harris' Republican rival, has made illegal immigration a key issues in his campaign ahead of the Nov. 5 election. The former president has repeatedly criticized Harris over border policy.
Harris told CNN last month she would renew a push for comprehensive border legislation that would tighten migration into the United States, vowing to "enforce our laws" against border crossings.
Immigration remains a top issue for voters. Fifty-four percent of respondents to a recent New York Times/Siena poll thought Trump would do a better job on the issue, while 43% indicated that Harris would.
Senate Republicans killed a bipartisan border bill in February that Trump had pressed them to reject. President Joe Biden and Harris have accused Trump of wanting the border to remain a campaign issue.