Kamala Harris spent her entire Senate career opposing border security
(Daily Caller News Foundation) – Vice President Kamala Harris spent years in the Senate opposing immigration enforcement measures before she ascended to the White House, a review of her record…
(Daily Caller News Foundation) – Vice President Kamala Harris spent years in the Senate opposing immigration enforcement measures before she ascended to the White House, a review of her record shows.
The Harris campaign has quickly attempted to moderate the newly-minted Democratic presidential candidate’s image on border security, with allies emphatically distancing the vice president from her “border czar” appointment. Her campaign chief has suggested she would keep in place a Biden-era executive order cracking down on illegal border crossings and she launched a campaign ad that casts her as more of a champion of Border Patrol than President Donald Trump.
But as a U.S. senator from California, Harris actively opposed border enforcement proposals, and immigration enforcement advocates have identified her Senate career as far-left.
“No good vote for her. Everything is a zero and an F,” Eric Ruark, research director for NumbersUSA, said about Harris’ Senate voting record to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
NumbersUSA is a Washington, D.C.,-based organization that advocates for tougher border security policies and lower levels of illegal immigration into the country. The group is widely known for their congressional scorecards, which grade lawmakers on how well they voted on immigration issues.
“We urge the Committee to additionally reject President Trump’s proposal for funding to hire new Border Patrol personnel at this time,” the letter went on, and claimed that the agency would be better served by improving in other areas other than higher staff.
The letter, which expressed “deep concern” over the Trump administration’s enforcement agenda, urged the committee to not only block funding for Border Patrol agents, but also wall construction and ICE detention beds. The demand was in sharp contrast from the Senate border deal proposal, which called for millions more in border security measures, more Customs and Border Protection personnel and more ICE beds.
Harris’ rhetoric while serving in the Senate also demonstrated a strong opposition to immigration security and the agencies that work to enforce immigration laws.
During a November 2018 Senate confirmation hearing for Ron Vitiello, then a nominee to lead ICE, Harris attempted to make a comparison between the agency and the Ku Klux Klan. Earlier that year, Harris told NBC’s Katie Hunt that she believed we needed to “critically reexaime ICE and its role” and consider restarting the agency “from scratch.”
While vying for the Democratic presidential nomination, but still serving in the Senate, Harris in February 2019 mocked Trump’s assertion that a border wall was needed to keep terrorists from entering the country, calling the idea a “vanity project” for the Republican president. Harris was among the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates in June 2019 who raised their hands in support of decriminalizing illegal border crossings and also signified support for government-funded healthcare for illegal immigrants.
It’s not yet clear if her campaign’s efforts to moderate her image on border security will work. As of now, the latest polling suggests Americans heavily view her as a leftist on the issue.
Sixty-nine percent of voters believe the vice president is in favor of “open borders,”according to a Harvard-Harris poll released on Tuesday. Voters across the political spectrum overwhelmingly agreed with the sentiment, with 82% of Republicans, 69% of independents and 56% of Democrats responding that they believe the now presumptive Democratic presidential nominee supports open border policies.
The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.