Vice President Kamala Harris, now a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, once compared federal immigration agents to white supremacists and suggested their agency should be completely reformed.
Harris in 2018 compared Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to the Ku Klux Klan, and she suggestedearlier that year that the entire agency should be abolished and started again “from scratch.” President Joe Biden withdrewfrom the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Harris on Sunday, making her a top contender for the party’s nomination.
Speaking during a November 2018 Senate confirmation hearing for Ron Vitiello to be the next ICE director, then-Senator Harris took umbrage with Vitiello’s past statements calling the Democratic Party “liberalcratic” and “NeoKlanist.” In her exchange with Vitiello about the tactics of the KKK, she asked him if he saw “any parallels” between ICE and the white supremacist organization.
“Are you aware of the perception of many about how the power and the discretion at ICE is being used to enforce the laws and do you see any parallels?” Harris asked the then-nominee to lead the agency.
“I see no perception that puts ICE in the same category as the KKK,” Vitiello answered. “Is that what you’re asking me?”
Harris then repeated her claim, asking if he was “aware that there is a perception that ICE is administering its power in a way that is causing fear and intimidation, particularly among immigrants, and specifically among immigrants coming from Mexico and Central America?”
Vitiello, again, said he did not see a parallel between the two groups. Harris then criticized him, asking how he could lead an agency if he isn’t aware of this alleged “perception.”
When asked by NBC’s Kasie Hunt in June 2018 if she supported abolishing ICE, Harris suggested a complete overhaul of the agency was necessary.
“There’s no question that we’ve got to critically reexamine ICE and its role, and the way that it is being administered, and the work it is doing,” Harris explained. “And we need to probably think about starting from scratch.”
A Democratic presidential ticket led by Harris will lead to a dramatic shift to the left on immigration enforcement, RJ Hauman, president of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE), told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Kamala Harris wasn’t just Biden’s Border Czar, she was his Abolish ICE Director — directing the agency in charge of enforcing our immigration laws to willfully violate them,” Hauman said. “Now that Biden is out of the picture, she is sure to return to some of the most insane anti-enforcement positions that we’ve ever seen from an elected official.”
“The choice in November will now be even more clear — mass deportation or mass release of illegal aliens and violent criminals into American communities,” Hauman continued.
NICE publicly criticized Harris on Sunday for once pledging to shut down all private prisons provided to ICE — a move that would virtually abolish ICE enforcement completely, given that nearly all detention beds are provided by private contractors.
90% of ICE detention beds are provided by private contractors.
This Kamala Harris stance shared by many Democrats is abolish ICE by proxy. https://t.co/NkqyhnsRZW
— National Immigration Center for Enforcement (@NICEnforcement) July 22, 2024
The Democratic National Convention will be held in Chicago on Aug. 19 to Aug. 22, where delegates will officially decide who will be the party’s presidential nominee.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
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