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Prescott Valley, Arizona (CNN) — Former President Donald Trump announced a new plan on Sunday to increase the number of United States Border Patrol agents and retain existing talent as he makes immigration and the border a key part of his closing message against Vice President Kamala Harris.
At a campaign rally in battleground Arizona – where he devoted much of his speech to stoking fears about undocumented immigrants – the former president committed to a goal of hiring 10,000 new US agents, providing a 10% salary raise, and offering a $10,000 retention and signing bonus.
“This will ensure that we can hire and keep the Border Patrol agents that we need to keep. And we can also bring in a lot of new ones, really great ones,” he told his supporters packed into the Findlay Toyota Center in Prescott Valley. He suggested that Border Patrol agents have “good genetics” after he recently said migrants who commit murder have “bad genes” in another example of him using dehumanizing rhetoric about those in the country illegally.
The former president said he would call on Congress to “immediately” approve the 10% raise for all agents.
Trump, however, scuttled a bipartisan border bill in Congress earlier this year that would have paved the way for more Border Patrol agents and that had the backing of the National Border Patrol Council. The Harris campaign and Democrats have frequently cited Trump’s efforts to kill the deal while going on the offensive against the former president on border security. That same union, which represents US Border Patrol agents, officially endorsed Trump on Sunday after previously lending him its support.
The Harris campaign on Sunday criticized Trump for what it said was his “his long record of failed leadership and broken promises.”
“Donald Trump told us Mexico would pay for his failed border wall. 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,” Harris campaign spokesperson Matt Corridoni said in a statement. “That’s why he killed the bipartisan border bill that would’ve secured the border, despite the fact though it was endorsed by the Border Patrol.”
In late September, Harris made her first visit to the US border as a presidential candidate, and in last week’s Univision town hall, she again accused Trump of tanking the bipartisan border security bill, asserting he wanted “run on a problem.”
As CNN has reported, Trump is running as if closing the border and kicking out those who illegally crossed it are the most pressing priorities for the country. But recent polls have repeatedly affirmed that the economy is the issue of greatest concern to the most number of voters. In a recent CNN poll conducted by SSRS, more than 4 in 10 likely voters said the economy was the most important issue as they chose a candidate to lead the country. Only 12% said immigration ranked highest for them.
CNN’s Ebony Davis and Steve Contorno contributed to this report.
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