Harris to call for tougher security measures in first trip to southern border as nominee
CBSN
Vice President Kamala Harris is set to visit Douglas, Arizona, on Friday, marking her first trip to the U.S.-Mexico border since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. Harris will deliver remarks to call for tougher border security measures as part of her efforts to address border issues, according to a senior campaign official.
Harris plans to say that American sovereignty requires setting rules at the border and enforcing them, stressing that Border Patrol agents need more resources.
The vice president will make combating the flow of fentanyl a focal point of her remarks and refer to it as a "top priority" for her presidency. Harris will propose adding fentanyl detection machines to ports of entry along the border and will call on the Chinese government to crack down on companies that make the precursor chemicals utilized in the making of fentanyl.
More than 2 million federal employees face a looming deadline: By midnight on Thursday, they must decide whether to accept a "deferred resignation" offer from the Trump administration. If workers accept, according to a White House plan, they would continue getting paid through September but would be excused from reporting for duty. But if they opt to keep their jobs, they could get fired.
More employees of the Environmental Protection Agency were informed Wednesday that their jobs appear in doubt. Senior leadership at the EPA held an all-staff meeting to tell individuals that President Trump's executive order, "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing," which was responsible for the closure of the agency's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office, will likely lead to the shuttering of the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights as well.
In her first hours as attorney general, Pam Bondi issued a broad slate of directives that included a Justice Department review of the prosecutions of President Trump, a reorientation of department work to focus on harsher punishments, actions punishing so-called "sanctuary" cities and an end to diversity initiatives at the department.