With Vice President Kamala Harris’ position on illegal immigration and border security currently appearing to take a 180-degree about-face from her past position on the issue, House Democrats have been quick to come out in support of the presidential nominee’s now somewhat hawkish and Trump-like position.
During the first and probably last presidential debate with former President Donald Trump, Vice President Harris did not talk about her actions or inactions as the “Border Czar.”
Harris cast blame on Senate Republicans for killing the H.R. 2 border security measure, saying that she would sign that bill into law if she is elected president.
The immigration measure sponsored by Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) mandates the building of the controversial border wall President Trump first began building during his first term in office.
Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D) told The Floridian that he believes Harris “ultimately answered” the immigration question posed to her at the debate, echoing Harris’ assertion that “Trump killed” the bill.
“I think ultimately she answered the immigration, she said it the other day that she would assign the bipartisan bill that Trump killed. Trump took credit for that, blamed me for killing the bill,” said Rep. Moskowitz. “I was out there very early saying that the administration should have been coming out on the border earlier.”
Rep. Moskowitz, who said Harris “doesn’t want a border wall,” is referring to the June 2024 border executive order that President Joe Biden signed in order to help stem the flow of illegal aliens from entering the country.
House Republicans call the order political theatre, saying that Biden should have done something earlier as Moskowitz pointed out.
Another Democrat, Rep. Darren Soto of Central Florida, believes that Harris is “on the right track” when it comes to border security, even though she stated in an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) survey that she would work to defund Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE)
“I am in general support of the bipartisan Senate border deal that unfortunately the former president helped kill,” said Rep. Soto. “She’s on the right track.”
“Our immigrant detention system is out of control, and I believe we must end the unfair incarceration of thousands of individuals, families and children,” Harris stated in 2019. “I was one of the first Senators after President Trump was elected to advocate for a decrease in funding to ICE.”
While Democrats are praising Harris’ new position on immigration reform, House Republicans like Rep. Cory Mills are questioning Harris’ true motives and concerns on immigration,” asking why “Border Czar” Harris didn’t press Senate Democrats to pass the aforementioned immigration bill in the upper chamber.
“She tried to put it on President Trump that it got killed, but she fails to understand that some of her own Democrats basically wouldn’t pass that bill, that amnesty bill that came forward. If she believes in strong immigration laws, and she was clearly the border czar, she tries to run away from it,” said Rep. Mills. “If she cared so much about immigration, why wouldn’t she press the Senate to pass H.R. 2 that passed the house, the most robust border plan that we ever presented?”
Fellow Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz (R) also told The Floridian that voters will not be fooled by Harris pivot on immigration.
"Well, the American voters know the Trump policies worked, and so now you are seeing Vice President Harris feign a nod toward those policies, but at the end of the day, she wants to abolish [Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)], she wants to decriminalize border crossings, and she wants these people to have a path to citizenship so they can vote," said Rep. Gaetz.
The economy and immigration are the top polling issues in the 2024 presidential election.
Trump leads Harris on both of those issues.
