Vice President Kamala Harris once supported taxpayer-funded sex change surgeries for migrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention, according to a 2019 campaign questionnaire.
Harris, then a U.S. senator for California and a Democratic presidential primary contender, told the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) she would ensure that individuals in prison and immigration detention would have access to “comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition” if elected president, according to an ACLU questionnaire unearthed by CNN. The 2024 presidential nominee, who has notably shifted to the center in recent days, staked out a number of far-left positions when responding to the 2019 questionnaire.
“It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition,” Harris responded at the time to the ACLU. The then-California senator in her response touted her past work to push the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender transition surgery to state inmates.
“I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained,” she continued. “Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment.”
Beyond providing government-funded sex change surgeries for illegal migrants who believe they are a different gender, Harris also answered in the affirmative when asked by the ACLU if she would dramatically reduce ICE funding. The former California senator claimed the immigrant detention system was “out of control” and touted her past legislative efforts to decrease funding to the agency.
“As president, I will fight to pass my DONE (Detention Oversight Not Expansion) Act into law which would increase oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities, slash detention by at least 50%, and halt funding for the construction or expansion of new facilities,” Harris stated to the ACLU in 2019.
Harris went on to tell the civil rights organization that she would “fight” to give a pathway to citizenship for the more than 11 million illegal migrants living in the U.S., reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and close private immigration detention centers.
The answers to the ACLU have resurfaced at a time when the vice president is attempting to shift to the right on immigration enforcement, with her camp running a slate of advertisements that appear to cast her as more of a border hawk.
In a campaign ad released in July, the Harris campaign claimed that she supports increasing the number of Border Patrol agents, supports new technology to block drugs from entering the country, and faulted former President Donald Trump for not supporting the Senate border deal that failed earlier this year. The vice president doubled down on this approach with a new ad in August that casts her as a tough border-state prosecutor and reiterates her pledge to hire “thousands more” border agents.
In the past, Harris has called Trump’s border wall “un-American” and a “stupid waste of money,” but she has since announced support for a Senate border deal that would’ve devoted millions of dollars to continue constructing the border wall.
Harris’ campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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