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Caitlyn Jenner tours U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego during recall campaign

Governor candidate Caitlyn Jenner is led on a tour of the U.S.-Mexico border in Otay Mesa by Border Patrol union officials
Governor candidate Caitlyn Jenner, center, is led on a tour of the U.S.-Mexico border in Otay Mesa by Border Patrol union officials Paul Perez, left, and Art Del Cueto, right.
(Brittany Cruz-Fejeran/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

GOP gubernatorial candidate and reality TV show star Jenner reacted to Brazilian migrants crossing border during Border Patrol union-led tour

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Gubernatorial candidate Caitlyn Jenner toured the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego Friday, building on a platform in the recall race that includes calls for construction of former President Donald Trump’s border wall to resume.

As she spoke to reporters near the eastern edge of the fence in Otay Mesa, a small group of Brazilian migrants walked from Tijuana into San Diego through an opening in an unfinished portion of the border structure, where metal slats lay discarded nearby.

Border Patrol union officials, who led Jenner, 71, on the tour, used the incident to drive home their message.

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Border Patrol Agent Greg Custenborder, the vice-president of NBPC Local 1613, the National Border Patrol Council’s local chapter, said the migrants were just trying to turn themselves in to agents.

“I want to be clear, they’re still being smuggled,” said Custenborder.

He said the agency was short on personnel, “so while this is happening and agents have to come over here to respond to this, other areas will have less coverage and they’ll send drugs over or higher risk felony smuggling. ... Every person that comes across this border is smuggled across this border.”

Union officials went over to the group of exhausted-looking Brazilian nationals, handed them bottled water and detained them. The union leaders tried speaking to the group in Spanish but learned they spoke mostly Portuguese.

A Border Patrol spokesman later confirmed the four Brazilian migrants, three men and a woman, had surrendered themselves to union officials and were taken into custody by on-duty agents.

A group of four Brazilian nationals crossed the border through a gap in the border fence
A group of four Brazilian nationals crossed into the United States through a gap in the border fence from Tijuana and were apprehended by Border Patrol union officials in San Diego Friday.
(Brittany Cruz-Fejeran/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

A long-shot candidate running an unconventional campaign, Jenner is campaigning for the September recall election that could remove Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom from office. She said issues at the border prompted her to run for office.

“One of the reasons I decided to run for governor is I was laying in bed and I was watching what’s happening at the border and I was so upset with it,” said Jenner. “People dying. People drowning. Kids in cages. It was bad policies and bad outcomes. Horrible outcomes, in this case.”

The border stop, on the second day of a month-long campaign tour, was to advocate for border wall construction to be finished — possibly by soliciting public donations and using state funds as has Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, she said.

Construction crews building the steel wall along parts of the U.S.-Mexico border were brought to a halt on Jan. 20 when President Joe Biden issued an executive order pausing the Trump administration’s signature infrastructure project.

Jenner said she was the only candidate among the 46 to come tour the border with agents.

Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, also a GOP candidate in the recall effort who has not supported Trump’s border infrastructure construction, responded to Jenner’s comments.

“I’m the only candidate in this recall who has run a border city and dealt firsthand with immigration and trade issues. I support a safe and secure border and expanding jobs and international trade,” said Faulconer, adding he would advocate for comprehensive immigration reform. “It’s past time to end the human trafficking and drug smuggling so we can focus on expanding economic and cultural opportunities on both sides of the border.”

Jenner, a former Olympian, has not done well in polls. Best known for appearing on “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” she has millions of social media followers, but she skipped the only candidate debate and has been filming a reality TV show in Australia.

Jenner came out as a transgender woman in 2015 and describes herself as a more moderate and progressive Republican. She said she favors granting a path to citizenship to the approximately 1.75 million undocumented immigrants in the state, but that border security is at the top of her agenda.

Asked what she would do to address the vulnerable migrants who have been persecuted in Central American countries based on their gender identity and then returned to Tijuana to wait in dangerous conditions outside the U.S. for their asylum claims to be reviewed, Jenner indicated they should receive no special treatment.

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