A July 30 advertisement from 2024 Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign claims that 2024 Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump blocked a bill to increase the number of Border Patrol agents.

Verdict: Unsubstantiated

While Trump is no longer an elected official, he did publicly voice opposition for H.R. 815, the bill that the advertisement appears to refer to. Experts offered differing perspectives on the claim with some saying that Trump could not block the bill as a private citizen and despite his public opposition to the bill, it still failed on its own. Others agreed with the advertisement’s claim.

Fact Check:

A new NPRS/PBS News/Marist poll places Harris in a 9-point lead over Trump among independent voters, according to Newsweek.

The July 30 advertisement claims Trump blocked a bill to increase the number of Border Patrol agents.

The claim is unsubstantiated. The advertisement appears to refer to H.R. 815, or the Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024. According to an analysis of H.R. 815 that appears on the American Immigration Council’s website, the bill makes various immigration-related reforms.

Among these reforms are the activation of “Border Emergency Authority,” which would allow the deportation of migrants “who enter between ports of entry without permitting them to apply for asylum.” The “Border Emergency Authority” would be triggered if border encounters “reach a daily average of 4,000 over a period of seven days and would become mandatory once border encounters reach over 5,000 over a period of seven days or 8,500 over a single calendar day,” according to the same analysis. 

The bill would also raise the standard for migrants to claim asylum during their initial screening interview and provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with the funds to “keep at least 50,000 detention beds available.” An American Immigration Council spokesperson directed Check Your Fact to the organization’s analysis of the bill.

Likewise, Section 205 of the bill requires a southern border wall to be constructed using the remaining funds set aside by Trump for the creation of the wall, according to an analysis of the bill from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Additionally, according to a fact sheet about the bill available via the White House’s website, the bill would add “more than 1,500 new Customs and Border Protection personnel.

In January 2024, Axios reported that Trump and House Republicans intended to kill the bill, citing a Nevada campaign rally in which the former President said the bill wasn’t “going to happen” and he’d “fight it all the way.” The outlet also indicated that House Speaker Mike Johnson called the bill “dead on arrival,” saying its efforts to stop illegal border crossings would be insufficient. Finally, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned senators “that Trump’s opposition would make it difficult to get a border plan through Congress.”

Likewise, in February 2024, Politico reported that Trump once again voiced his opposition to the bill, writing “only a fool or a Radical Left Democrat” would vote for the bill on his TRUTH Social account. In the same TRUTH Social post, Trump claimed the bill “only gives Shutdown Authority after 5000 Encounters a day,” an argument his surrogates also made, according to Politico.

On February 7, 2024, NBC News reported Republicans had killed the bill, with only four voting to support it. According to The Associated Press, the vote was 49 to 50, with the bill failing to secure the 60 votes needed to bring it to the floor. Similarly, in May 2024, the outlet reported Republicans had blocked the bill a second time, with “nearly every Republican voting to filibuster it.” Six Democrats voted with Republicans to block the bill, according to NBC News. The vote was 43 to 50, with the bill again failing to secure the 60 votes needed to bring it to the floor, the outlet indicated. (RELATED: Here’s What We Know About Kamala Harris’ Stance On Defunding The Police)

Furthermore, in a July 30 article highlighting Harris’ campaign advertisement, The Hill noted that Senate Republicans had blocked H.R. 815, otherwise known as the “bipartisan border bill,” twice. According to the outlet, Trump “urged the GOP to oppose the legislation, suggesting it could give President [Joe] Biden an election-year win.”

Numerous experts shared differing perspectives on Harris’ claim with Check Your Fact.

Douglas Ligor, acting director of the Management, Technology, and Capabilities (MTC) Program within the Homeland Security Research Division at the RAND Corporation, said that while Trump publicly opposed the bill, he as a private citizen, could not block the legislation in Congress.

“That amendment did include approximately $584 million for the hiring of CBP ‘personnel’ (‘agents’ were not specifically designated but likely would have been a significant part of the hiring). I will say, generally, that the amendment referred to did not obtain enough Republican support in the Senate to overcome a filibuster. So, as a technical matter, it was the senate that blocked the legislation—no private citizen can ‘block’ legislation in Congress.  That said, the former President was publicly against the amendment (for various reasons also stated publicly) and encouraged congressional Republicans to vote it down,” Ligor said.

David Bier, associate director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, agreed that while Trump opposed the bill, he could not block it directly since he is no longer an elected official.

“Trump is not an elected official, so he cannot block anything directly. Members of his party who listen to him could theoretically do so at his request. It is true he opposed a bill that would have provided funding to hire more Border Patrol agents this year, and members of his party blocked that bill,” Bier said.

Ira Mehlman, media director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), said that while Trump opposed the bill, it “failed on its own merits.”

“Although the ad does not make specific reference, it is likely that it is referring to the so-called Senate compromise bill that went down to defeat twice (in February and May) in procedural votes. In neither case did the bill win a simple majority in the Senate (meaning it did not even get the support of all Democrats), much less the 60 votes needed to bring it to the floor.”

“It is true that Trump opposed the bill, but the bill failed on its own merits. It offered some additional money and manpower, but not to halt mass illegal immigration, but to process and release migrants more expeditiously,” Mehlman explained, citing a summary of the bill that FAIR produced.

“The fact that Trump or members of the Senate opposed the bill does not necessarily suggest opposition to hiring more border patrol agents. The bill was defeated because the additional border agents would not be preventing illegal immigration, but rather managing and facilitating it,” he added.

Simon Hankinson, senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at the Heritage Foundation, called the advertisement “deceptive.”

“This ad is deceptive and based on false premises. Let’s start with the most obvious. If a bad bill has a few good parts in it but is mostly terrible, and a politician therefore rejects it, his opponents use that to claim that he rejected only the good bits. It would be like claiming that someone who disliked eating at McDonald’s for health reasons “hates salad.” This ad is a classic example,” Hankinson said.

“There have been multiple bills in Congress to address the Biden border crisis. None have made it close to passage. H.R. 2, which passed the House in May 2023, would have restored sanity at the border, but the Democrat-controlled Senate refused to vote on it. The Senate “bipartisan” bill that came out in February was opposed by every expert, politician, and voter who both read it and cared about secure borders. Harris’s ad tries to convince voters that this Senate bill was tough, but any objective analysis shows the opposite.”

“This supposedly bipartisan bill was supported by the Biden Administration and its architect of open borders, Secretary of Homeland Security Mayorkas. The Senate bill would have made legal the admission of several thousand illegal immigrants per day caught at the border. It also legalized, rather than stopped, Biden’s mass abuse of parole;  failed to curb asylum fraud or the abuse of children as pawns to avoid immigration detention; and granted extraordinary discretion to an administration that would certainly abuse it. The Senate bill funded the network of United Nations entities and U.S. non-governmental organizations that facilitates and funds millions of people to migrate illegally to the United States,” he added.

Angela Kelley, chief adviser for policy and partnerships at the American Immigration Lawyers Association who previously served as an immigration adviser in the Obama and Biden administrations, agreed with the Harris campaign’s claim.

“Yes, it is correct,” Kelley said of the claim, adding, “It is true that [Trump] is not a sitting member of the House or the Senate, but he has extraordinary influence over Republican members.”

“If the legislation had passed, it would have addressed issues on the border and would have been a feather in the Biden administration’s cap. Rather than solve a vexing interest, Trump put his political interests first and sitting members in Congress let him do that,” she said.

Dr. Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, also agreed with the Harris campaign’s claim.

“Yes, it is true that President Trump encouraged Republicans in Congress to vote against a bill that would have provided funding to increase the number of Border Patrol agents,” Gelatt said.

Debu Gandhi, senior director of Immigration Policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, noted how the bill collapsed after Trump publicly opposed it on TRUTH Social back in February.

“On February 5th, Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that the bipartisan border bill was ‘nothing more than a highly sophisticated trap  . .  . just in time for our most important EVER Election,’ urging Republicans ‘Don’t fall for it!!!’ and ‘Only a fool, or a Radical Left Democrat, would vote for this horrendous Border Bill.’ Within days, it was reported that the bipartisan deal to provide $723 million to hire additional Customs and Border Protection officers and Border Patrol agents and $424.5 million to combat the entry of fentanyl and other narcotics from entering the U.S. had collapsed,” Gandhi said.

Todd Bensman, senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said Trump blocked the bill, but not on the grounds that it “would have paid for more Border Patrol agents.”

“I would agree that Trump did put his name and back into blocking that bill. But not because it would have paid for more Border Patrol agents but because it would have embossed as law acceptance of 1.8 million illegal entries per year (5,000 a day before possible but not mandatory closure) and up from the current (INA) law’s goal of zero. The extra agents were to be used not to stop block and deter as Harris seems to suggest but to process INTO the country those 1.8 million a year-plus as the border patrol has done for three years now. So yes he got it killed but for arguably the good reason that the killed law would have codified a wide open border and staffed entry processing. A radical departure from the current laws,” Bensman explained.

Check Your Fact has also contacted spokespersons for Harris and Trump for comment.