by Jason Hopkins
Vice President Kamala Harris spent years in the Senate opposing immigration enforcement before she took office as president of the White House, a review of her past performance shows.
Harris’ campaign quickly moved to soften the Democratic presidential candidate’s image on border security, with the support of allies firmly distancing himself vice president with her nomination as “border czar.” Her campaign manager suggested that hold down Biden-era executive order aimed at combating illegal border crossings and it launched campaign advertising which makes her a greater advocate for the Border Patrol than President Donald Trump.
But as a U.S. senator from California, Harris actively opposed border security proposals, and immigration enforcement advocates have characterized her Senate career as far-left.
“There’s no good vote for her. It’s all zeros and Fs,” Eric Ruark, director of research at NumbersUSA, told the Daily Caller News Foundation about Harris’ Senate voting record.
NumbersUSA is a Washington, D.C.-based organization that advocates for stricter border security and lower levels of illegal immigration into the country. The group is widely known for its congressional scorecards, which rate lawmakers on how well they voted on immigration issues.
“Because of senators like Harris, we had to give her an F- to really gauge how terrible they are on immigration,” Ruark continued. “As a senator, her actions speak for themselves on immigration.”
Harris’s voting record in the upper house of Congress secured her Grade F-the lowest possible rating given by NumbersUSA. Harris is poorly rated on a variety of immigration enforcement measures, including reducing “rewards” for illegal immigration, border enforcement, interior enforcement, amnesty incentives, and several other related issues.
As a U.S. senator, she co-sponsored at least three different bills in 2019 that would have narrow or completely blocked Trump’s ability to build a border wall, co-sponsored two bills that would have made indefinite the Flores Settlement, a court decision that made it much harder to apprehend undocumented migrants, and supported other bills that weakened border security, according to a review of her legislative career by NumbersUSA.
She introduced legislation in 2018, this would not only prevent the expansion of ICE detention facilities, but also reduce the number of beds in ICE detention facilities.
Harris appears to be moving to the right as she campaigns to replace President Joe Biden in the Oval Office. Her campaign launched an ad this week, saying she “supports increasing the number of Border Patrol agents” and suggested Trump is not doing so because he opposes the Senate’s controversial border deal.
Yet while Trump occupied the White House, Harris actively tried to block his efforts to augment funding for more Border Patrol agents.
“As your Committee considers fiscal year 2019 appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), we ask that you reject President Trump’s request for fiscal year 2019 funding for a costly and ineffective border wall, new Border Patrol agents, and significant increases in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel and detention space,” the statement reads. Letter dated April 2018 to the Senate Appropriations Committee and signed by a handful of Senate Democrats — including Harris.
“We urge the Committee to further reject President Trump’s proposal to fund the hiring of new Border Patrol personnel at this time,” the letter continued, saying the agency would be better served by improving in other areas rather than just hiring more staff.
The letter, which expressed “deep concerns” about the Trump administration’s law enforcement agenda, urged the commission to block not only funding for border patrol agents but also construction of a wall and beds in ICE detention centers, a demand that contrasted sharply with the Senate’s demand proposal for a border agreementwhich called for millions of dollars in border security measures, more Customs and Border Protection staff, and more ICE accommodation.
Harris’ rhetoric while in the Senate also reflected sturdy opposition to immigration security and the agencies tasked with enforcing immigration laws.
While November 2018 In the Senate confirmation hearing for Ron Vitiello, then the nominee to lead ICE, Harris attempted to compare the agency to the Ku Klux Klan. Earlier that year, Harris told NBC’s Katie Hunt that she believed we needed to “critically re-examine ICE and its role” and consider restarting the agency “from scratch.”
Running for the Democratic presidential nomination but still serving in the Senate, Harris February 2019 Harris ridiculed Trump’s claim that a border wall is needed to stop terrorists from entering the country, calling the idea a “vanity project” for the Republican president. was among Democratic presidential candidates in the 2020 election who raised their hands in June 2019 in support of decriminalizing illegal border crossings and also expressed support for government-funded health care for undocumented immigrants.
It is not yet clear whether her campaign’s efforts to moderate her image on border security will work. For now latest pollssuggests that Americans perceive her as having leftist views on this issue.
Sixty-nine percent of voters believe the vice president favors “open borders,”According to Harvard-Harris poll released Tuesday. Voters across the political spectrum overwhelmingly agreed with that view, with 82% of Republicans, 69% of independents and 56% of Democrats saying they think the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee supports open borders policies.
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Jason Hopkins is a reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
