During a Trump administration battle over protections for some illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, then-Senator Kamala Harris warned Americans not to say “Merry Christmas” until some illegal immigrants were granted permanent residency.
“We’re all singing happy songs, we’re all singing Merry Christmas, we’re all wishing each other a Merry Christmas, and these kids don’t have a Merry Christmas. How dare you say Merry Christmas. How dare you say it. They’re not going to have a Merry Christmas,” she said at a 2017 press conference, footage of which was obtained by Fox News Digital.
Speakers argued for passage of the DREAM Act, which would give a path to citizenship to some illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors. NBC News report.
Harris made the remarks at a press conference in December 2017 after then-President Trump announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects some illegal immigrants who entered the US as minors from deportation. Harris said it would be “morally wrong” to strip away existing protections for people who were protected under an Obama-era executive order.
President Trump had called on Congress to act to reach an agreement that would expand those protections along with tougher enforcement, including building a wall on the southern border.
But as Congress struggles to reach an agreement, liberal activists and Democrats have warned that people will face uncertainty before Christmas because protections for undocumented immigrants will disappear.
“They don’t know if they’ll be here in the next few days, weeks or months,” Harris said. “More than 12,000 people have lost their immigration status since Sept. 5…So we have to end this, and we have to end it by the end of the year. Not in January, not in February, not in March, but right now.”
As a presidential candidate and as vice president, Harris will likely call for opening a path to citizenship to a broader range of undocumented immigrants, including those who came to the US as children, farmworkers and those receiving Temporary Protected Status.
The Biden administration introduced a comprehensive immigration reform bill that would have included a path to citizenship on its first day in office, and administration officials, including Harris, have been lobbying continuously to get the bill through Congress, but Republicans have resisted the proposal, especially amid the ongoing crisis at the southern border.
Harris has been criticized for her role as the administration’s leading advocate for border issues and has been dubbed the “border czar,” a title she rejects.
“As you know, Kamala Harris was appointed Border Commissioner in March of 2021, but since then, her willful destruction of United States borders and laws has allowed millions of illegal immigrants to enter our country and countless Americans to be killed in immigration crimes,” former President Trump said at a press conference last week.
Harris’ campaign has countered by contrasting her record with Trump’s record during his presidency.
“The only ‘plan’ Donald Trump has for securing our border is to separate mothers from their children and hold up a few xenophobic signs at the Republican National Convention. He ruined the toughest bipartisan border security deal in a generation. Because for Donald Trump, this has always been about himself, not actually securing the border. He can lie all he wants, but the fact is that there is only one candidate in this race who is fighting for real solutions to secure our border, and that is VP Harris,” said Harris campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz.
