As Republicans attack Harris on immigration, her record in California is revealed

SAN FRANCISCO — With the Biden administration struggling with low approval ratings on immigration and Republicans blaming Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris for what they call a “border invasion,” Harris is pushing back, emphasizing what she calls her history of tough border security in campaign ads and speeches.

But a look at Harris’ record as a public servant in California — the state with the largest number and share of immigrants — provides a more nuanced picture. Longtime political observers say her experience as the daughter of immigrants has intertwined with her career as a prosecutor, setting a pattern: pro-immigration but tough on the law.

Dan Morain, a California-based political reporter who wrote a 2021 biography of Harris, says her parents took her to their respective homelands of India and Jamaica, where she learned more about her roots. And as accomplished scholars who worked for civil rights, her parents embodied the belief that with perseverance in America, great things are possible.

“Kamala Harris has lived the story of the second generation immigrant,” Morain said. “It’s ingrained in her that immigration is fundamental to the United States.”

With immigration at the core of her own life experience, Harris has a history of supporting immigrant communities and legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. But her work in California, including as the state’s attorney general, also provides her with opportunities to tout the law enforcement actions she has taken in this area.

Harris as DA and AG

As San Francisco’s district attorney from 2004 to 2010, Harris went after abusive employers who shortchanged immigrant workers. And she encouraged immigrant communities to feel safe interacting with law enforcement.

But she also supported turning over immigrant minors arrested for crimes to immigration agents, challenging the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ enforcement of the city’s sanctuary ordinance, which limited cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

“For her to have a negative opinion of people who break the law is who she was,” Morain said. “I mean, she’s a prosecutor. That was her job.”

As California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2016, Harris brought that forceful approach to the fight against transnational crime. At a presidential campaign rally in Atlanta last month, Harris spotlighted that work.

“I went after transnational gangs, drug cartels, and human traffickers who were coming into our country illegally,” she said. “I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won.”

Sonja Diaz was working as a policy advisor on the attorney general’s executive staff at the time, and she says she saw Harris put a specific focus on that.

“She has done a lot of work to tackle the proliferation of transnational criminal organizations, not only in relation to drugs, but also in relation to human trafficking,“she said.

Harris built ties with her law enforcement colleagues in Mexico and El Salvador, said Diaz, who now directs a Latin American research institute at UCLA.

“To do this kind of work requires partnerships and bilateral relationships that can really make a difference,” she said.

Damian Dovarganes / AP

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AP

But when thousands of unaccompanied children began arriving at the border in 2014, she led the way with humanity, Diaz says. Harris rallied government, philanthropy, nonprofits and corporate law firms, and secured tens of millions of dollars so that children who went to immigration court alone had lawyers.

“The way she acted was … to identify how we as Californians under her leadership could begin to fill the gaps in access to justice and representation for these children,” Diaz said.

“She has stood by us in our worst moments”

On Capitol Hill last month, a rally was held in favor of a bill that would provide a path to citizenship for long-term undocumented immigrants. At the rally, Angelica Salas, who leads the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, better known as CHIRLA, said she and other advocates were excited to have Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket.

“We know her,” she said. “She’s from California, so she knows the immigrant community. She’s been with us through our worst moments.”

When Donald Trump became president in 2017 and Harris was a new U.S. senator, Salas said Harris met with CHIRLA members and reassured undocumented immigrants fearful of Trump’s threats of mass deportation that she would fight for them. She also stood with Dreamers, young undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, when Trump tried to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

And Salas says Harris did more than just speak out when the Trump administration separated children from migrant parents at the border.

“She went into detention centers to talk to the mothers whose children were taken away,” she said. “So we have incredible confidence that she will be an incredible champion for our families.”

Biden-Harris administration struggles with migration

Now that Harris is in the White House, he needs to approach immigration from a different perspective.

She is part of a Biden administration that has faced record numbers of international migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border and attempting to enter the country illegally, often seeking asylum. Border enforcement and asylum agencies have been overwhelmed.

In 2021, President Biden tasked Harris with addressing the “root causes” of migration from three Central American countries that were the source of most unauthorized migration at the time — a role Republicans have unfairly dubbed “border czar.” Analysts say Harris has made some progress on business investment to create jobs and on promoting the rule of law, but the results of such efforts could take years to materialize.

To reduce the number of unauthorized border crossings as quickly as possible, the Biden administration has, among other things, restricted access to asylum.

Harris joined Biden in calling on Congress to pass a bipartisan bill, hammered out earlier this year, that would put more resources into the Border Patrol and immigration courts and allow the government to expel people without processing asylum claims if border encounters reach a certain level. Harris has criticized Trump for undermining Republican support and ruining the bill’s chances of passage.

In response to the policy, many immigrant rights groups have sharply criticized Biden for what they say are steps that erode the legal right to seek protection from persecution. But so far, they are not attacking Harris in the same way.

Political observers say that may be because, as the November election approaches, proponents realize that the alternative to a Harris presidency is a return to Trump’s hardline policies.

“We’ll see if that works as a political message”

Although three-quarters of Americans say they see the border as a crisis or a major problem, two-thirds of them, according to a recent Gallup poll, say immigration is good for the country. Moreover, the vast majority support an earned path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, particularly Dreamers.

Andrew Selee, president of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute in Washington, DC, says this is the backdrop to a presidential election that has seen sharply divergent approaches to immigration.

“We’ve seen the Trump campaign focus on the idea that immigration is bad for the country,” he said. “But actually, most Americans don’t believe that. They’re concerned about the border, which is a specific part of the immigration debate.”

Selee predicts that Harris will try to find a middle ground and bring together the two sides of her own life experience.

“We’re going to see Vice President Harris talk about immigration as something good for the country because she’s the child of two immigrants and she understands how important it is to the future of America. And at the same time, (she’s) going to talk like a prosecutor when she talks specifically about the border,” he said. “We’ll see if that works as a political message.”

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