Kamala Harris’s immigration record explained

During last night’s presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, topics ranged from ‘illegals eating animals’ to more serious issues, including foreign policy.

When speaking about immigration issues in America, Trump referred to Harris multiple times as a ‘border czar’, claiming she was ’embarrassed’ by the borders she had been ‘in charge of’ as vice president.

Yet Harris was never put in charge of America’s border.

Trump claimed: ‘What about all the people that are pouring into our country and killing people? That she allowed to pour in. She was the border czar. Remember that. She was the border czar.

‘She doesn’t want to be called the border czar because she’s embarrassed by the border. In fact, she said at the beginning, I’m surprised you’re not talking about the border yet. That’s because she knows what a bad job they’ve done.’

In reality, Harris had not been tasked border security. That job belongs to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Harris was tasked by Joe Biden to address the causes of why migrants come to America from three countries in particular – Guatemala, Honduras and el Salvador, dubbed the ‘Northern Triangle’.

She has visited the border in her time as vice president under Biden, including a visit to Mexico and Guatemala in 2021, where she said she hoped to understand ‘root causes’ that drove migration into the US.

Harris issued a staunch warning to migrants hoping to make the illegal crossing into America, saying: ‘I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border: Do not come. Do not come.’

This hasn’t stopped opponents from slamming the democratic nominee, as border crossings have reached historic highs in the last four years under Biden and Harris.

Efforts Harris has made to identify and address the root causes which see illegal immigration soar might not be see results anytime soon, Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute told Time.

‘To the extent that this was a useful assignment, she did reasonably well in getting the private sector to invest in Central America. But it was an assignment that could not produce results anytime soon.’

Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance writing on X: ‘Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?’

Throughout the debate last night, Trump repeated his falsehood that millions of migrants were pouring into the United States from ‘foreign prisons and mental institutions’.

He claimed they were ‘taking over towns, buildings and going in violently’.

An analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice found that the United States is not seeing a surge in crime from immigrants.

A 2021 study found that undocumented immigrants are 33 percent less likely to be incarcerated than people born in the United States.

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