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.
“Because of senators like Harris, we had to go an F- to really measure how terrible they are on immigration,” Ruark continued. “As a senator, her actions speak for themselves on immigration.”
Harris’ voting record in the upper chamber of Congress earned her an F- rating, the lowest possible score awarded by NumbersUSA. Harris is marked poorly on a slate of different immigration enforcement measures, such as reducing “awards” for illegal immigration, border enforcement, interior enforcement, amnesty enticements and several other related issues.
As a U.S. senator, she co-sponsored at least three different bills in 2019 that would’ve limited or outright blocked Trump’s ability to build border wall, co-sponsored two bills that would lock in the Flores Settlement Agreement — a court decision that has made it incredibly more difficult to detain illegal migrants and has supported other bills that weaken border security, according to a review of her legislative career by NumbersUSA.
She introduced legislation in 2018 that would not only prohibit the expansion of ICE detention facilities, but also reduce the number of ICE detention beds.
Harris has appeared to shift right amid her campaign to replace President Joe Biden in the Oval Office. Her campaign launched an ad this week claiming she “supports increasing the number of Border Patrol agents” and suggested Trump did not because he opposed the controversial Senate border deal.
However, when Trump was occupying the White House, Harris actively tried to stop his efforts in increasing funding for more Border Patrol agents.
“As you Committee considers fiscal year 2019 appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), we ask you to reject President Trump’s FY2019 funding request for a costly and ineffective border wall, new Border Patrol agents, and a large increase in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel and detention beds,” read an April 2018 letter to Senate Appropriations Committee and signed by a handful of Senate Democrats — including Harris.
“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 pollingsuggests 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.
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