JD Vance focuses on border security and drug trafficking during visit to South Georgia

Moments later, Vance used that story to galvanize a crowd of hundreds of supporters sweating outside in the South Georgia sun.

“We know what's going to happen when a package of this candy finds its way into our communities or onto our playgrounds,” Vance said. “Think of how sick (Vice President) Kamala Harris must be to let these people do business in our country instead of kicking them out of our country.”

With polls predicting a close result between former Republican President Donald Trump and Harris, Vance traveled to Georgia – one of the few contested states – for a second time on Thursday. His visit coincided with Trump's trip along the Mexican border, the same day Harris was scheduled to accept the Democratic nomination in Chicago.

In a presidential campaign redefined by the sudden resignation of President Joe Biden, Republicans see immigration as a potential difference-maker — especially in Georgia. A recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll listed immigration as one of the most important issues for likely voters in Georgia.

The issue has received widespread attention in Georgia after 22-year-old student Laken Riley was killed while jogging on the University of Georgia campus. Jose Ibarra, a Venezuelan who prosecutors say entered the U.S. illegally, has been charged in her death.

On Thursday, Vance called Riley “a beautiful young girl who would be alive today if Kamala Harris had done her job and not allowed these drug cartels to invade our communities.”

While the Trump campaign has repeatedly linked illegal immigration to a rise in violent crime, several studies have shown that this is not the case. Last year, a Stanford University study found that first-generation immigrants are 30 percent less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born whites and 60 percent less likely to end up in prison than U.S.-born people.

The number of illegal border crossings has dropped sharply in recent months, with U.S. Customs and Border Protection saying the number of migrant “encounters” at the southwest border in July was the lowest monthly total since September 2020.

Here in Valdosta, Lowndes County Sheriff Ashley Paulk agreed that violent crime is not an issue. The bigger problem is drug smugglers coming through Valdosta via the nearby intersection of I-10 and I-75. On Thursday, it was Paulk's officers who showed Vance stacks of guns and illegal drugs they had seized in the county.

“I know (Trump) has a solution for this,” said Paulk, a Democrat who describes himself as a “fanatical supporter” of the former president. “He's going to close that border.”

The Harris team blamed Trump for all problems at the border and accused him of being responsible for the failure of bipartisan border protection legislation earlier this year.

“More people are dying from fentanyl overdoses because he didn't let Senate Republicans vote for this bill because he needed it for his campaign issue,” U.S. Senator Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) told reporters on Thursday ahead of Trump's visit to the border.

Vance, who was in the Senate at the time the border security bill was rejected, said the bill had “nothing to do with border security” and argued that it was about molding Biden and Harris' policies into laws that he did not support.

Vance was well received by the hundreds of people in the audience on Thursday, saying, “Without them, we will not win.” He also tried to calm a simmering feud between Trump and Georgia's popular Republican governor, Brian Kemp.

Vance said he spoke with Kemp “very briefly” earlier in the day.

“I've read the headlines. Brian Kemp and Donald Trump have had some disagreements,” Vance said. “I can guarantee you 100% that Brian Kemp is behind this ballot. He wants us to win.”