Vice President Kamala Harris previously supported taxpayer-funded sex-reassignment surgery for immigrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, according to a 2019 campaign survey.
Harris, then a senator from California and a Democratic presidential candidate, told the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that if elected president, she would ensure that people in prisons and immigration detention centres have access to “comprehensive gender transition-related care”. According to In response to the ACLU survey Discovered by CNNThe 2024 presidential candidate has recently shifted to the center. 2019 Survey. (Related article: ICE agency fights sanctuary policies, arrests record number of sex offenders)
“It is important that transgender people who rely on state care have access to the care they need, including access to care related to their gender transition,” Harris told the ACLU at the time. In her response, Harris, then a California senator, touted her past work lobbying the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide sex-reassignment surgery to state inmates.
“I support policies that ensure that federal prisoners and detainees have access to the medical care they need to transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained,” she continued. “Gender transition treatment is medically necessary, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to provide transition treatment.”
LANDOVER, MARYLAND – JUNE 7: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris addresses the crowd after speaking at a campaign event for Maryland Democratic Senate candidate and Prince George's County Mayor Angela Alsobrooks during Gun Violence Awareness Day at the Kentland Community Center in Landover, Maryland on June 7, 2024. (Photo by Andrew Harnick/Getty Images)
Harris also answered affirmatively when asked by the ACLU if she would drastically cut funding for ICE, as well as provide government-funded gender reassignment surgery for undocumented immigrants who believe they are of a different gender. The former California senator argued that the immigrant detention system is “out of control” and touted past legislative efforts to cut funding for ICE.
“As president, I will fight to pass the DONE (Detention Oversight Expansion) Act, which will increase oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities, reduce detentions by at least 50%, and end funding for the construction and expansion of new facilities,” Harris told the ACLU in 2019.
Harris also told civil rights groups that she would “fight” to provide a path to citizenship for the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, reinstate the Deferred Action for Removal program for young immigrants and close private immigrant detention centers.
The resurfacing of the ACLU response comes at a time when the vice president is trying to move to the right on immigration enforcement and her campaign is running a series of ads portraying her as a border hardliner.
in Election Advertising In a July campaign statement, the Harris campaign argued that Harris supports increased Border Patrol agents, supports new technology to stop drugs from entering the country, and criticizes former President Donald Trump for not supporting a failed Senate border deal earlier this year. Vice President Harris has doubled down on this approach, New Advertisement In August, she reiterated her pledge to assume the role of tough prosecutor in border states and hire “thousands more” border patrol agents.
Harris has previously called Trump's border wall “un-American” and a “stupid waste of money,” but has since voiced her support for the Senate border deal that would allocate millions of dollars to continue construction of the border wall.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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