By Neil Vigdor
Former President Donald Trump was endorsed by the main union for Border Patrol agents during a rally Sunday in Arizona, a crucial swing state where Trump and his allies repeatedly stoked nativist fears over illegal immigration and crime to attack Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Border Patrol Council, which represents roughly 18,000 agents and endorsed Trump in 2020, formally pledged its support to him again with just over three weeks to go in a race that Republicans have focused largely on the issue of immigration.
Trump, speaking from a podium wrapped in camouflage netting, said he would set a goal of hiring 10,000 new Border Patrol agents, significantly increasing the patrol’s workforce. He also pledged to ask Congress to immediately approve a 10% raise for agents and a $10,000 retention and signing bonus.
A bipartisan border bill — which was endorsed by the union — would have provided funding for thousands of new Border Patrol agents and personnel, but it died in May when Republican senators, who were heavily influenced by Trump, blocked the measure. It would have also given the federal government a mechanism for immediately sealing the border when the number of migrants crossing it reached unmanageable levels.
The union’s president, Paul Perez, who joined Trump onstage with about a dozen border patrol agents, said the election of Harris would have dire consequences for the nation.
“Every city, every community in this great country is going to go to hell,” Perez said.
Matt Corridoni, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign, said in a statement that the Border Patrol had endorsed the bipartisan bill that Trump helped scuttle because it would have taken away one of his main lines of attack.
“Donald Trump told us Mexico would pay for his failed border wall,” he said. “That was a lie. Then he made taxpayers pay for his failed border wall. Trump doesn’t care about solving problems, he only wants to run on one.”
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