{"id":23484,"date":"2020-08-14T16:20:02","date_gmt":"2020-08-14T20:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=23484"},"modified":"2020-08-18T12:07:25","modified_gmt":"2020-08-18T16:07:25","slug":"kamala-harris-immigration-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2020\/08\/14\/kamala-harris-immigration-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Kamala Harris\u2019 Immigration Record"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden finally announced his long-awaited pick for his running mate: former primary opponent and Senator from California, Kamala Harris<\/a>. The pick is not entirely surprising. Biden himself is a creature of the Senate and many observers felt that his pick would almost certainly come from that chamber. In April, Biden\u2019s team vetted and considered at least six sitting female senators<\/a>. Within Biden\u2019s team, Harris\u2019 chief drawback was her bristling takedown of Biden himself in a June 2019 debate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris is the daughter of immigrants \u2013 her mother hails from India and her father is Jamaican. Before running for Senate in California, she served as a district attorney for San Francisco from 2004-2011 and as the state\u2019s attorney general from 2011-2017 under Governor Jerry Brown. During her time as attorney general Harris opposed efforts by national Republicans that targeted sanctuary cities and states<\/a>, writing that \u201ccriminal justice policy should not be conflated with national immigration policy.\u201d She also established legal clinics and job training programs for ex-convicts that allowed illegal aliens<\/a> to participate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris ran for Senate in the 2016 election cycle, replacing retiring California Senator Barbara Boxer. In the Senate, Harris became a leading opponent of the Trump administration\u2019s immigration agenda, with Vox labeling her as the \u201canti-Jeff Sessions<\/a>,\u201d referencing the then-U.S. attorney general who was then and is now a prominent supporter of immigration enforcement. She publicly announced that she would not vote for any spending bills unless they contained protections for recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and vehemently opposed the Trump administration\u2019s attempt to rescind the executive memorandum. Harris also voted against a compromise that would have given the Trump administration $25 billion to construct a border wall<\/a> in exchange for a DACA amnesty. During the Senate confirmation hearing of Ronald Vitiello, President Trump\u2019s then-nominee to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Harris compared the immigration enforcement agency to the Ku Klux Klan<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On January 21, 2019, Harris announced<\/a> she would seek the Democratic nomination for president. Harris\u2019 biggest moment came at the Miami debate where she released a full throttled attack against Joe Biden for his historical stance on busing and desegregation. Harris made it a sticking point of her campaign to overtake Biden in the polls, attacking him on the debate stage by accusing him of having insensitivity on racial issues<\/a>. Her campaign appeared to be on the ascent after her performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris released an immigration policy plan<\/a> that was in lockstep with the progressive wing of the Democratic party. Her campaign promised that \u201cAs president, Harris will take executive action to keep immigrant families together and eliminate barriers that prevent Dreamers from accessing a path to U.S. citizenship.\u201d Harris\u2019 team estimated that her plan shielded more than 6 million illegal aliens from removal, with a pathway to citizenship for 2.1 million. She also promised to resurrect the Obama-era Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA), a program that lower courts struck down as unconstitutional. The Supreme Court upheld the ban<\/a> in a 4-4 vote, and the Trump administration officially rescinded DAPA in June 2017. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alarmingly, no part of Harris\u2019 plan involved moving legislation through Congress. Instead, Harris planned to unilaterally use her parole powers<\/a> to expand eligibility for DACA and use the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to distribute work authorization documents to illegal aliens. Essentially, Harris planned to use the legal basis or DACA to expand the program well beyond people brought to the United States as minors. Harris pledged that \u201cthe deferred action program will also be open to other law-abiding immigrants with ties to their communities\u201d \u2013 a catch-all categorization with no real barriers to eligibility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As her campaign gathered more momentum, prominent open borders advocacy groups endorsed her, including United Farm Workers<\/a> (UFW) who specifically praised her \u201cbold leadership on immigration.\u201d In their endorsement, UFW stated that \u201cwe also support Senator Harris because of her bold leadership on immigrant rights, from championing genuine immigration reform to voting against funding for Trump\u2019s cruel and useless wall.\u201d The activist group United We Dream<\/a> (UWD) similarly noted that Harris \u201cmodels leadership\u201d and hailed her aggressive questioning<\/a> of then-DHS secretary John Kelly in a June 2017 Senate hearing. America\u2019s Voice, a prominent open borders organization, credited Harris for her work as both California\u2019s attorney general<\/a> and as a U.S. senator<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite her debating success, Harris\u2019 campaign never really got off of the ground. Campaign staff accused the campaign manager of being incompetent, and multiple high-level staffers resigned<\/a> due to the poor treatment of staff and the direction of the campaign. Her campaign ended once her campaign ran out of money, with the candidate admitting<\/a> that \u201cMy campaign for president simply doesn\u2019t have the financial resources we need to continue.\u201d Yet she quickly became a front-runner for the position of Joe Biden\u2019s running mate, particularly after he promised<\/a> to pick a woman of color. It remains unseen how active Harris will be in the campaign and ultimately what her influence on Biden\u2019s platform will be. Joe Biden\u2019s \u201cUnity Plan<\/a>,\u201d crafted alongside the progressive surrogates of socialist Bernie Sanders, contains a litany of proposals that would swell the size of America\u2019s illegal alien population and amnesty all 13.5 million illegal aliens in the country. Joe Biden\u2019s solo campaign plan<\/a> promised to provide \u201ca roadmap to citizenship for nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants.\u201d Harris\u2019 entry into the race as Biden\u2019s running mate certainly raises the issue of immigration even higher than it already was in this race, given Harris\u2019 focus on the issue during her Senate tenure. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden finally announced his long-awaited pick for his running mate: former primary opponent and Senator from California, Kamala Harris. The pick is not entirely surprising. Biden himself is a creature of the Senate and many observers felt that his pick would almost certainly come from that chamber. In April, Biden\u2019s team<\/p>\n

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