Harris Waffles on Border Policy in CNN Interview

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the Whi
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
Neil Munro

Kamala Harris waffled when asked to describe her migration policy during her brief interview with CNN.

She first portrayed herself as an opponent of illegal migration when host Dana Bash asked, “You raised your hand [in a 2019 debate] that asked whether or not the border should be decriminalized. Do you still believe that?”

“I believe there should be consequences,” Harris responded, vaguely. “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.”

She did not describe any legal consequences for illegal migration.

Moreover, since 2021, she has taken a back seat to border chief Alejandro Mayorkas.

He has smuggled at least one million economic migrants into the United States via what he described as “legal pathways,” even as he also claims that he imposed “consequences” for the millions of undisturbed economic migrants who have sneaked into Americans’ neighborhoods and workplaces.

Mayorkas’s easy-migration policy has been strongly supported by the West Coast investors who are backing Harris’s 2024 campaign.

Later in the interview, Harris also said that her “values ” have not changed.

“I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is: My values have not changed,” she said. 

“My value around what we need to do to secure our border, that value has not changed,” she said. 

Her record, however, shows that her values include tolerance for mass migration into Americans’ society and economy.

In July, she told CNN that she would solve the border problem with a law that “create[s] a pathway to citizenship …. the solutions are at hand.”

“Trump’s border wall is just a stupid use of money,” she tweeted in 2017. “I will block any funding for it.”

“We should be using that money for infrastructure, Medicare for All, or tuition-free college,” she said in 2018. 

As a Senator, she used her vote to block federal oversight of the “sponsors” who housed the youthful job seekers who crossed the border under the Unaccompanied Alien Children program. 

https://twitter.com/TheKevinDalton/status/1829258139709182043/photo/1

She also dodged Bash when she asked: “Why did the Biden-Harris administration wait three and a half years to implement sweeping asylum restrictions?”

Harris responded by changing the subject:

Well, first of all, the root causes work that I did as vice president, that I was asked to do by the president has actually resulted in a number of benefits, including historic investments by American businesses in that region. The number of immigrants coming from that region has actually reduced since we’ve began that work.

But I will say this: That Joe Biden and I and our administration worked with members of the United States Congress on an immigration issue …

Harris’s waffling was promptly accepted by the New York Times, which reported:

In her first television interview as the Democratic nominee for president, Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday defended her ideological shift to the political center, saying she would appoint a Republican to her cabinet but promising “my values have not changed.”

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