The border crisis could reach new heights or largely remain unchanged if Vice President Kamala Harris ends up winning the presidential election in 2024, border hawks warn.
President Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race Sunday and immediately endorsed Harris, making her the leading contender to snag the party’s delegates at the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. Her past voting record in the Senate, comments she’s made about federal immigration authorities and recent actions taken in the White House all signal a sharp pivot left if she were to win election. (RELATED: Pro-Sanctuary City Dem Complains ICE Didn’t Give Advance Notice To Local Police Before Arrests)
“I would say more of the same or potentially even worse,” Eric Ruark, research director for NumbersUSA, a group that works toward limiting illegal immigration into the U.S., said in a conversation with the Daily Caller News Foundation about possible border policy changes if Harris were to replace Biden at the Oval Office. “Biden had a history of being at least rhetorically against illegal immigration.”
“Harris has yet to come out and say, ‘it’s a crime and we need to enforce the law,” Ruark continued. “Clearly she was tasked with addressing the border crisis by President Biden, and her approach was basically to say, ‘don’t come.’ That was the extent of her policy approach.”
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 5: (L-R) Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. President Joe Biden react to a reporter’s question about Speaker of the House voting in Congress after delivering remarks about border security policies in the Roosevelt Room in the White House on January 5, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
NumbersUSA publishes “report cards” on every single lawmaker in Congress, evaluating how they performed on immigration and other border security issues. During her short time in the Senate before leaving for the White House, Harris earned an F- rating, the lowest possible score offered by the group.
The then-Senator earned failing grades for votes on a host of immigration-related issues, such as border security, interior enforcement, refugee management and amnesty, according to NumbersUSA.
NumbersUSA highlighted her 2019 co-sponsorship of the RAIDER Act, which would’ve blocked then-President Donald Trump’s construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, and her 2019 co-sponsorship of the FACE Act, which would’ve made it more difficult for Trump to continue border wall construction. The group also graded her vote against the Secure and Protect Act which, they argue, would’ve positively reformed the Flores Settlement. (RELATED: Migrants Are Slamming US Ports Of Entry In Near-Record Numbers)
Other border hawks expressed trepidation over Harris’ enforcement record.
“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,” RJ Hauman, president of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE), told the DCNF. “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.”
As illegal border crossings quickly climbed early in the administration’s tenure, Biden tapped Kamala to lead an effort to address the root causes of unlawful migration from Central America, a position many described as “border czar.” However, Border Patrol encounters at the southern border went on to reach recording-setting levels since her appointment, according to the latest Customs and Border Protection data.
Enforcement experts have noted that the root causes of illegal immigration still remain unaddressed and lawmakers in Congress have sought to hold Harris specifically responsible for the ongoing border crisis. Harris was also heavily criticized for taking so long to finally visit the southern border.
“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.
Harris compared Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the Ku Klux Klan during a November 2018 Senate confirmation hearing, asking Ron Vitiello, a nominee to lead the agency at the time, if he knew there was a “perception” among Latino immigrants that ICE agents operate like Klan members. Then-Senator Harris had also suggested during a June 2018 media interview that ICE should essentially be abolished and rebuilt again “from scratch.”
TOPSHOT – Central American immigrant get on the so-called La Bestia (The Beast) cargo train, in an attempt to reach the Mexico-US border, in Arriaga, Chiapas state, Mexico on July 16, 2014. AFP PHOTO/ELIZABETH RUIZ (Photo by ELIZABETH RUIZ / AFP) (Photo by ELIZABETH RUIZ/AFP via Getty Images)
Upon election to the White House, the Biden-Harris administration oversaw a monumental overhaul of the policies established by President Donald Trump that beefed up border and interior enforcement, undertaking 89 executive actions that specifically reversed or began the process of reversing Trump’s immigration policies, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute.
The White House immediately halted construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, shuttered the Remain in Mexico program that had largely eliminated asylum fraud by keeping asylum seekers in Mexico while their cases were adjudicated in the court system, and they attempted to enforce a 100-day moratorium on all deportations.
If Trump were to be successful in his re-election bid, Ruark said the Republican would need to do more than offer criticisms of Harris, but also put forward a policy platform on how his administration would hit the ground running on day one to “undo the damage” the Biden administration has done on border security.
In his Republican National Convention speech last week, Trump promised the “largest deportation operation” in the country’s history, finishing construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall and other hardline approaches to border security.
One local border leader noted the incredible burden the current border crisis has placed on the district he represents.
“Under Biden with the open border, we had over 150,000 people dropped in the streets here in San Diego County from a period of about eight or nine months,” San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond said Monday to the DCNF.
“It put pressure on our law enforcement, put pressure on our hospitals and shelters, and we bore all the burden of these people just freely and willingly able to cross the border,” Desmond continued, noting that it was Harris who was placed into a leadership position by the Biden administration to address the crisis. “She has failed us on the border.”
Desmond noted that the border crisis isn’t a “red or blue” issue, but something that’s been affecting everyone in his district, particularly those with homes near the border who’ve had to deal with a constant flow of asylum seekers passing through their property.
Since Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed Harris, a growing number of Democratic leaders have gotten in line behind the vice president’s fledgling candidacy, establishing her as the presumptive nominee before the DNC convenes on Aug. 19 in Chicago.
“What we’ve seen from her career in the Senate and the public statements she’s made, it would only get worse,” Ruark said of the border situation. “As bad as things are, they can get worse, and that’s something we should all realize.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
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