What To Know About Kamala Harris’s Immigration Record Before Border Visit Today

Topline

Vice President Kamala Harris will make her first visit to the U.S.-Mexico border since she became the Democratic nominee on Friday, speaking on immigration as Republicans have scrutinized her views on the issue and claimed she served as the Biden administration’s “border czar,” which misinterprets the narrow task Harris actually had.

Key Facts

The Trump campaign and his allies have made Harris’ handling of the border crisis into one of their main attacks against Harris as she’s taken over for President Joe Biden as nominee, and the House passed a resolution in July a 220-196 vote that “strongly condemn[s] the Biden Administration and its Border Czar, Kamala Harris’s, failure to secure the United States border.”

Biden tapped Harris in March 2021 to lead a much more narrow diplomatic effort to curb migration from the “Northern Triangle” countries—Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador—and address the root causes for why residents there immigrate to the U.S. in the first place, along with enhancing other countries’ borders that those migrants travel through along the way before they get to the U.S.

Despite the more narrow nature of her assignment, some media outlets referred to Harris as the “border czar” more broadly, popularizing the nickname that Republicans then seized on—even though it misinterpreted her actual role.

She was never tasked with managing border security in the U.S., which is under the purview of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who said in June 2021 Harris is “leading our nation’s efforts to address the root causes—that fundamental question of why people leave their homes,” while he is “address[ing] the security and management of our border.”

Harris has led efforts on addressing those root causes, particularly in getting private sector investment in the region to improve its economy—which the White House said in March had created 250,000 jobs—with Honduran Minister of Investment Miguel Medina telling CNN that working with major companies is “not something that is accessible to a normal company in Honduras” without U.S. involvement, and “if it wasn’t for this being moved from the White House, there’s … no way we could have had the success” the initiative on private sector investment has had.

Addressing the root causes of migration is something that by nature will take longer to bear fruit than more immediate efforts to stop migrants at the border—so it’s harder to see how Harris’ work has had an impact—with Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, telling TIME that while the VP did “reasonably well” in working with the private sector, her assignment is one “that could not produce results anytime soon.”

Immigration levels from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador have gone down in the years since Harris’ assignment began, with data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) showing encounters with migrants from those three countries have dropped from approximately 700,000 in 2021 to 500,000 in 2023—while encounters with migrants from other countries outside Harris’ purview, like Colombia, Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela have gone up.

Get Forbes Breaking News Text Alerts: We’re launching text message alerts so you'll always know the biggest stories shaping the day’s headlines. Text “Alerts” to (201) 335-0739 or sign up here.

News Peg

Harris will travel to Douglas, Arizona, Friday to deliver remarks on the border. An unnamed Harris aide told Politico the vice president is expected to “argue that American sovereignty requires setting rules at the border and enforcing them” and push for more resources for border agents and measures to detect fentanyl at ports of entry, while also advocating for “an immigration system that is safe, orderly, and humane.”

What Is Harris’ 2024 Immigration Platform?

Harris has not outlined many concrete policy proposals ahead of the presidential election, primarily saying that she would focus on passing a bipartisan border bill that failed to pass Congress earlier this year. Harris has blamed Trump for killing the bill in order to improve his election chances, vowing to pass the bill—which would overhaul the asylum process to make it more difficult, change detention policies and increase the number of green cards, among other sweeping measures—if elected. Beyond that, Harris’ campaign website says only that she supports “comprehensive reform” including “strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship.” In an August interview with CNN, Harris said she supports consequences for immigrants who unlawfully cross the border, saying, “We have laws that have to be followed and enforced that address and deal with people who cross our border illegally. And there should be consequences.”

How Have Harris’ Views On Immigration Changed?

During the 2020 presidential primary, Harris pushed views that are further to the left of her current positions, with CNN reporting she said on an ACLU questionnaire that she was in favor of cutting funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and pledged to “end” immigration detention. Harris also reported being in support of providing gender transition surgeries for transgender detained immigrants and federal prisoners, which Republicans have strongly decried since CNN called attention to the comments on Monday. CNN brought up to Harris that she raised her hand at a 2019 primary debate when asked if she supported “decriminalizing” border crossings to make unlawful crossings only a civil offense. She no longer supports that view, she told CNN. Harris justified her change in positions—on immigration and other issues, like no longer supporting a ban on fracking—by telling CNN that while her stances on specific policy proposals may have evolved, “my values have not changed.” “My value around what we need to do to secure our border, that value has not changed,” Harris told CNN, pointing to her record as attorney general in which she spent her tenure “prosecuting transnational criminal organizations, violations of American laws regarding the ... illegal passage of guns, drugs, and human beings across our border. My values did not change.”

What Did Kamala Harris Do On Immigration Before Becoming Vice President?

Harris has a record of opposing Republican policies that stretches back before her time as vice president. The first bill she introduced as senator after being elected to the office in 2016 sought to guarantee legal access for people detained entering the U.S. after then-President Donald Trump enacted his “travel ban,” and she was the first Democrat to say she wouldn’t support a government spending bill without protections for “DREAMers” in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. As California’s attorney general, she took steps like ordering law enforcement to help crime victims apply for visas. Harris attracted controversy from the left when she served as San Francisco’s district attorney, however, as she sided with then-Mayor Gavin Newsom, now California’s governor, on a widely criticized policy to report juvenile undocumented immigrants to authorities regardless of whether they had been charged with a crime. The policy led to more than 100 people being reported and was later overturned by legislation, The Sacramento Bee reports.

Contra

Though Harris didn’t take on the expansive role on immigration in the White House that conservatives allege, some of what she has done on immigration has still drawn controversy throughout her vice presidency. She was criticized by the left for telling people thinking of migrating to the U.S. in a June 2021 speech, “Do not come,” adding, “If you come to our border, you will be turned back.” The vice president also came under scrutiny for not visiting the border early in her tenure. NBC News’ Lester Holt asked her in an interview why she hadn’t visited the border and Harris got defensive, telling Holt, “This whole thing about the border. We’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border.” When Holt responded that Harris hadn’t personally been there, she said, “And I haven’t been to Europe” and didn’t “understand the point that you’re making.” She then visited border facilities in El Paso, Texas, later that month—though Republicans still criticized her for not visiting areas with a higher concentration of border crossings.

Crucial Quote

“Border policy focuses on individuals who have already made the decision to leave home and have made it to the U.S.-Mexico border and aims to either prevent them or to quickly process them for humanitarian relief or deportation once they cross,” American Immigration Council policy director Aaron Reichlin-Melnick told USA Today about how Harris’ work contrasts with typical border security policy. “By contrast, ‘root causes’ policy focuses on individuals who have not left their homes yet, and aims to convince them to stay in their home countries either through economic development … or through reduction of violence and persecution that forces people to seek protection elsewhere.”

Key Background

Harris suddenly became the Democratic Party’s new major presidential candidate in late July after Biden announced he was pulling out of the presidential race, endorsing Harris as his successor minutes later. She quickly garnered the support of all major Democrats and was quickly deemed the party’s nominee, but Republicans ramped up their criticism against her for her record as Biden’s vice president, particularly on immigration. The GOP has sharply attacked the Biden administration on immigration amid an influx of migrants, with CBP reporting that encounters with migrants went up from 1.95 million in 2021 to 3.2 million in 2023. There have already been encounters with more than 2.4 million migrants so far this year. The GOP has decried the White House’s handling of the border crisis as a result, and the Biden administration has taken steps like suspending asylum admissions in response.

Further Reading