Harris criticized for ‘gaslighting’ public over her immigration views

Vice President Kamala Harris made a 180-degree change in her views on prosecuting illegal border crossers during her highly anticipated first interview since becoming the official Democratic Party presidential nominee.

CNN host Dana Bash questioned Harris on Thursday about whether she still believes illegal border crossings should be prosecuted. Harris had indicated she opposed the practice during her 2019 presidential campaign.

“I believe there should be consequences,” Harris told Bash. “We have laws that need to be upheld and enforced, that go after and prosecute people who cross our border illegally. … And let’s be clear, in this race, I am the only person who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations that traffic in guns, drugs, and people. I am the only person in this race who has 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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Unaccompanied minors walk toward U.S. Border Patrol vehicles after crossing the border from Mexico, May 9, 2023, in El Paso, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)

Harris’ comments Thursday stand in contrast to what she has said and done in the past regarding illegal immigration, particularly when it comes to illegal border crossings.

In addition to saying during a nationally televised debate that she would not prosecute people who crossed the border illegally, she told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2015 that “an undocumented immigrant is not a criminal.” She also posted the assertion 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 position.

“I wouldn’t make it a crime punishable by jail time,” she said. “It should be a civil enforcement issue, not a criminal enforcement issue.”

As a U.S. senator, Harris sought to defund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). And as California’s attorney general, she directed local law enforcement not to comply with ICE’s requests to hold someone who has committed a crime and crossed the border illegally until he or she can be taken into custody to begin deportation proceedings.

Harris also compared ICE to the Ku Klux Klan.

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Fox News Digital spoke to critics who called Harris’ comments “disingenuous” and “only for election purposes.” (Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

Fox News Digital spoke with two conservative immigration law experts, who called her comments “disingenuous” and “for election purposes only.”

“If anyone cared about enforcing our laws as they relate to the border, you would think they would be part of and lead an administration that does a good job of prosecuting violations involving illegal border crossings,” said Gene Hamilton, executive director of America First Legal, a right-wing legal organization founded by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller.

“The Justice Department’s prosecutions for border-related violations are at an all-time low. They’re even lower than they were in the Obama years, and that’s saying something.”

Hamilton, who served as an adviser to the attorney general at the Justice Department under former President Trump, argued that a key measure of how seriously an administration takes border security is the number of illegal border crossings relative to the number of people deported.

According to Justice Department data, there were 2.4 million illegal border crossings last year, Hamilton said.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department has prosecuted about 20,000 such 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 will have in 2023, but the Trump administration still prosecuted more than five times as many illegal border crossers than the Biden-Harris administration did in 2023.

“As she said in her interview last night, her values ​​haven’t changed. She’s said that over and over again,” said Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center. “She’s telling her supporters, ‘Look, don’t worry about what the campaign says now. We just have to say that to try to get elected. But my values ​​haven’t changed.'”

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Vice President Kamala Harris raised eyebrows when she told CNN’s Dana Bash that her “values ​​haven’t changed” after completely reversing her far-left positions in 2019. (Screenshot/CNN)

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Ries criticized the Biden-Harris administration for “gaslighting” the American public, but argued that the Harris campaign “takes it to another level” by denying that Harris has been appointed as border czar and pretending she is not in power and cannot take tougher measures at the border.

“She’s in power now. If she really meant it, she would do it now, and she’s not. But pretending that you’re not in power and you’re not in office now is a higher level of gaslighting,” Ries said. “I think this is just, you know, for election purposes.”

Hamilton agreed, calling Harris’ comments Thursday “disingenuous.”

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Fox News Digital has repeatedly reached out to Harris’ campaign for comment but has not received a response.