'For election purposes': Critics balk at Harris' claim she will 'enforce our laws' at southern border
Vice President Kamala Harris made a 180-degree turn on her opinion about prosecuting illegal border crossings during her long-awaited first interview since becoming the Democratic Party's official nominee for president.
CNN anchor Dana Bash questioned Harris Thursday about whether she still believed illegal border crossings should be prosecuted, something Harris indicated she was against while running her 2019 campaign to become president.
"I believe there should be consequence," Harris told Bash. "We have laws that have to be followed and enforced that address and deal with people who cross our border illegally. … And let’s be clear, in this race, I’m the only person who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations who traffic in guns, drugs and human beings. I’m the only person in this race who actually served a border state as attorney general to enforce our laws. And I would enforce our laws as president going forward."
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Harris' comments Thursday contrasted with what she has said and done in the past regarding illegal immigration, particularly when it comes to illegal border crossings.
Besides indicating during a nationally televised debate that she would not pursue people who have crossed the border illegally for prosecution, she told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2015 that "an undocumented immigrant is not a criminal." She also posted the claim on social media. And in a riff with the late Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain's daughter, Meghan, during a 2019 episode of "The View," Harris reiterated her stance.
"I would not make it a crime punishable by jail," she said. "It should be a civil enforcement issue but not a criminal enforcement issue."
As a U.S. senator, Harris sought to strip funding from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). And as California's attorney general, she instructed local law enforcement not to adhere to ICE detainers when they request that someone who has committed a crime and crossed the border illegally be held until they can be taken into custody to initiate deportation procedures.
Harris has also compared ICE to the Ku Klux Klan.
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Fox News Digital spoke to two conservative immigration law experts who called her comments "insincere" and "for election purposes" only.
"If someone cares about enforcing our laws as they pertain to the border, you would think that they would be a part of and lead an administration that prosecutes sufficient offenses related to crossing the border unlawfully," said Gene Hamilton, the director of America First Legal, a right-wing legal group founded by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller.
"The Department of Justice's prosecution for border-related offenses are at rock bottom. They are lower than even the Obama years, and that's saying something."
Hamilton, who served as counselor to the attorney general at the Department of Justice under former President Trump, argued a key metric in determining how seriously an administration is taking border security is the number of illegal border crossings compared to the number of individuals deported.
Last year, there were 2.4 million illegal border crossings, according to Department of Justice data, Hamilton said.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department prosecuted around 20,000 of those violations.
"You know, the numbers — the numbers speak for themselves," Hamilton argued. He also pointed out that in 2019, under Trump, there were fewer illegal border crossings than the country faced in 2023, but the Trump administration still prosecuted more than five times the number of illegal border crossers than the Biden-Harris administration in 2023.
"As she said last night in her interview, her values have not changed. She said that over and over again," said Lora Ries, the director of the Heritage Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center. "She is telling her base, 'Look, don't worry about what the campaign is saying right now. We just have to say that to try and get elected. But my values have not changed.'"
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Ries slammed the Biden-Harris administration for "gaslighting" the American public but argued the Harris campaign "is taking it to another level" by denying Harris was tapped to be the border czar and pretending as if she is not in power and able to enact tougher measures at the border.
"She's in power right now. If she truly meant it, she would do it now, and she's not. But to pretend like you're not in power and not in office right now is a higher level of gaslighting," said Ries. "I think this is just, you know, for election purposes."
Hamilton echoed that statement, calling Harris' comments Thursday "insincere."
Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign repeatedly for comment but did not receive a response.