Immigration reform one of several top focus areas in 2024 presidential election

WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - The number of people trying to migrate into the United States across the southern border has hit historic levels the last several years.

Migrant workers are essential work force but also the focus of critical debate for the presidential candidates.

New data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows encounters with migrants between points of entry dropped 68% in August from a year ago. A CBP official said the decrease has made the situation at the southern border more manageable.

But that progress has not stopped former President Donald Trump from slamming President Joe Biden's policies, and promising to undo them all if re-elected.

"I will not let these killers and criminals into our country," Trump said at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. "The Republican platform promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country."

According to a recent Scripps News/Ipsos survey, most Americans would support mass deportations while the non-profit organization

Global Refuge said similar past efforts were horrific.

"You saw, you know, U.S. citizens get rounded up and accidentally deported. You saw families that were completely devastated by family separation," said President and CEO Krish O'Mara Vignarajah.

Blue-collar employers would also lose thousands of workers. Conservatives say the solution is expanding access to work visas.

"What I think is really destructive to the fabric of the country is to do it on the side around the law to say, well, you know, we basically have to live with illegal immigration or else, you know, the food doesn't get cooked and the lawns don't get mowed," said Senior Research Fellow Simon Hankinson at the Heritage Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center.

If elected president, Vice President Kamala Harris wants to revive and sign the bipartisan Senate bill addressing border security.

"The Border Patrol endorsed it. But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign," said Harris at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois. "So he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal. Well, I refuse to play politics with our security."

The bipartisan bill was the first significant attempt at immigration reform in more than decade.

"It did put in place some real reforms that recognize that we are a nation of immigrants, but we're also a nation of laws," O'Mara Vignarajah said.

"This was a Trojan horse that would really have just locked into law practices that are currently illegal and really destructive," Hankinson said.

A Monmouth University poll found most voters trust Trump more than Harris to handle immigration.