Border hardliners have warned that the border crisis could reach new heights or remain largely unchanged if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the 2024 presidential election.
President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race on Sunday and immediately endorsed Harris, making her the front-runner to win the party's delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. Her past voting record in the Senate, her comments about federal immigration authorities and her recent actions in the White House all suggest that Harris would pivot sharply to the left if she wins the election. (Related story: Pro-sanctuary city Democrats complain that ICE didn't notify local police before arrests)
“It could be the same or even worse,” Eric Ruark, research director at NumbersUSA, a group that works to limit illegal immigration into the United States, said in a conversation with the Daily Caller News Foundation about possible changes to border policy if Harris replaces Biden in the Oval Office. “Biden has a history of being, at least rhetorically, opposed to illegal immigration.”
“Harris has yet to publicly say, 'This is a crime and we need to enforce the law,'” Ruark continued. “Obviously she was tasked by President Biden to respond to the border crisis, but her approach was basically to say, 'Don't come.' That was her policy approach.”
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 5: (L-R) Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. President Joe Biden answer reporters’ questions about the Speaker of the House’s congressional vote after speaking about border security policy in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC on January 5, 2023. (Photo by Drew Ungerer/Getty Images)
NumbersUSA publishes a “report card” of each member of Congress, rating them on how they performed on immigration and other border security issues. Harris, who served briefly as a senator before moving to the White House, F-ratingThe lowest score provided by the group.
According to NumbersUSA, the then-senator received failing grades for voting on a number of immigration-related issues, including border security, domestic law enforcement, asylum management and amnesty.
NumbersUSA highlighted her 2019 co-sponsorship of the RAIDER Act, which would have blocked then-President Donald Trump from building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and her 2019 co-sponsorship of the FACE Act, which would have made it harder for President Trump to continue building a border wall. The group also credited her for voting against the Safeguard Act, which would have positively reformed the Flores settlement. (Related article: Record numbers of migrants flood U.S. ports of entry)
Other border hardliners expressed misgivings about Harris' enforcement record.
“Not only was Kamala Harris Biden's border chief, she was also the abolishing director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), knowingly directing the agency responsible for enforcing immigration law to break the law,” RJ Howman, president of the National Center for Immigration Enforcement (NICE), told DCNF. “Now that Biden is out of the picture, Harris will undoubtedly return to some of the most outrageous anti-enforcement positions we've ever seen from an elected official.”
Biden has been spurred by a sharp rise in illegal border crossings since his administration took office. Tapped Camara has led efforts to address the root causes of illegal migration from Central America and has been dubbed by many as the “border czar.” However, since her appointment, Border Patrol encounters at the southern border have reached record levels. according to The latest Customs and Border Protection data.
Enforcement experts say the root causes of illegal immigration have yet to be addressed, and lawmakers Hold Harris has been particularly blamed for the ongoing border crisis. She has also been heavily criticized for taking so long to visit the southern border.
“The choice in November will now be even clearer: mass deportation of illegal immigrants and violent criminals, or mass release of them into American communities,” Howman continued.
During her Senate confirmation hearing in November 2018, Senator Harris likened Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the Ku Klux Klan, asking then-ICE nominee Ron Vitiello if he was aware of a “perception” among Latino immigrants that ICE agents act like members of the KKK. Then-Senator Harris also suggested in a media interview in June 2018 that ICE should essentially be abolished and rebuilt “from scratch.”
TOP SHOT – Central American migrants board the so-called “La Bestia” (The Beast) freight train in Arriaga, Chiapas, Mexico, heading for the Mexico-US border on July 16, 2014. AFP PHOTO/ELIZABETH RUIZ (ELIZABETH RUIZ / AFP) (ELIZABETH RUIZ/AFP via Getty Images)
Once elected to the White House, the Biden-Harris administration will oversee a major review of policies established by President Donald Trump that will increase border and domestic enforcement, and will issue 89 executive orders that specifically reverse or begin the process of reversing Trump's immigration policies, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute.
White House Stop immediately Construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border, Closed The Remain in Mexico program sought to largely eliminate asylum fraud by keeping asylum seekers in Mexico while their cases were heard in court, and it also sought to halt all deportations for 100 days.
Ruark said if Trump seeks reelection, he needs to go beyond criticizing Harris and lay out a policy platform from day one on how his administration will “undo the damage” the Biden administration has done on border security.
At the Republican National Convention speech President Trump last week promised the largest “deportation operation” in U.S. history, said he would complete construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and implement other hardline approaches to border security.
One local border leader noted that the current border crisis has placed an incredible strain on the district he represents.
“Under the Biden Administration's open border policy, San Diego County has had over 150,000 people put onto the streets in a period of about eight or nine months,” San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond told DCNF on Monday.
“This case put pressure on law enforcement, it put pressure on hospitals, it put pressure on shelters, and we carried all of the burden of these people being able to cross the border freely and willingly,” Desmond continued, noting that it was Harris who was put in a leadership position by the Biden administration to address the crisis. “She has failed us at the border.”
Desmond pointed out that the border crisis is not a “red or blue” issue, but affects everyone in his constituency, particularly those who have homes near the border and have to deal with a constant flow of asylum seekers passing through their soil.
Since Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris, a growing number of Democratic leaders have backed a fledgling vice presidential bid, naming Harris as the interim candidate ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 19.
“Her record as a senator and her public comments indicate that it's only going to get worse,” Ruark said of the border situation. “It's bad, but it could get a lot worse. That's something we all need to be aware of.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
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