While serving as the top prosecutor for San Francisco, Kamala Harris’ office misappropriated millions in federal grant funds intended for the prosecution of border-related crimes, a 2010 government audit found.
The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office incorrectly applied for more than $5 million in federal grants from the Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative (SWBPI) while Harris led the office, according to a March 2010 audit from the Department of Justice (DOJ). San Francisco County — which has been a sanctuary county for many years — was ordered to reimburse the federal government back for the misappropriated funds.
“In support of the prior SWBPI audit, we also conducted seven external audits of SWBPI recipients to determine if SWBPI reimbursements were allowable, supported, and in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, guidelines, and terms and conditions of the SWBPI program,” the DOJ audit states. “The external audits identified unallowable and unsupported SWBPI reimbursements of $15.57 million, of which $5.41 million was related to San Francisco County.” (RELATED: County Supervisor Calls For End Of Sanctuary Policies In Wake Of Illegal Migrant Arrests For Murder)
The 2010 audit report was first unearthed by the Washington Free Beacon.
EL PASO, TEXAS – FEBRUARY 01: Seen from an aerial view, immigrants walk along the U.S.-Mexico border wall after crossing the Rio Grande into El Paso, Texas on February 01, 2024 from El Paso, Texas. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
As a result of state and local governments increasingly prosecuting federally declined and referred cases, Congress in 2001 began to appropriate millions to reimburse county and municipal governments in the four southern border states for the costs associated with managing illegal immigration and alien and drug smuggling cases, according to the DOJ audit. Oversight of the SWBPI program was later transferred to the DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs.
San Francisco County hired a contractor to manage its SWBPI reimbursement requests, but because the contractor provided “materially inaccurate” guidance, the county submitted and received reimbursement for cases that were ineligible under the SWBPI guidelines, according to the audit.
“The contractor obtained the contract based on the contractor’s professed expertise related to SWBPI,” the report concluded. “However the contractor’s representative stated to us that he did not have any experience related to SWBPI and that he mistakenly used the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) criteria in preparing the San Francisco County SWBPI reimbursement requests.”
The audit found that the contractor, along with a San Francisco County official, incorrectly included all locally initiated drug related cases under the U.S. attorney’s prosecution threshold in the county’s reimbursement requests. The audit found that other California counties used the same contractor.
As the top prosecutor for San Francisco, Harris also launched a jobs program intended to keep criminals out of prison, but her office mistakenly enrolled illegal migrants into the program until one of the noncitizens selected for the program stole a woman’s purse and fractured her skull. As a U.S. senator, Harris has gone on record comparing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the Ku Klux Klan and suggested the agency should be restarted “from scratch.”
Corporate media outlets have attempted to diminish the vice president’s lead role in addressing the “root causes” of illegal migration from Central America. More than seven million illegal migrants have crossed the U.S.-Mexico under the Biden administration, according to the latest data from Customs and Border Protection.
Since President Joe Biden declared his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race, Harris has established herself as the presumptive Democratic nominee by securing enough delegates from her party. The Democratic National Convention will begin on Aug. 19th and officially nominate the party’s presidential and vice presidential candidates.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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