Remember, her values haven't changed.
Vice President Kamala Harris, in a left-leaning survey, supported using taxpayer money to provide gender reassignment surgery for prison inmates, decriminalize drugs, and end U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention of illegal immigrants suspected of crimes. American Civil Liberties Union During the ill-fated 2020 presidential campaign.
investigation Resurfaced by CNN The debate comes just over 24 hours before Harris and former President Donald Trump face off in Philadelphia in the only scheduled debate.
“Kamala's support for decriminalizing all drugs will exacerbate this country's drug epidemic and lead to more overdoses, deaths, homelessness and heartbreak,” Trump 2024 press secretary Caroline Leavitt said.
“Kamala's plan to fund sex-reassignment surgery for illegal immigrants is completely insane and unfair to American taxpayers,” Leavitt added. “Kamala Harris is dangerously liberal.”
Since Harris became the Democratic representative following President Biden's July 21 withdrawal from the race, her campaign has issued statements quietly walking back some of her progressive policy positions, including her opposition to fracking and support for electric vehicle mandates, without Harris herself publicly explaining why.
The 59-year-old vice president then confused things by telling CNN's Dana Bash in his only major television interview before the Aug. 29 debate, “The most important and significant thing about my policy views and my decisions is that my values haven't changed.”
Sex reassignment surgery for immigrant prisoners
Then-Senator from California, she vowed to use executive power as president to ensure that transgender and non-binary people have access to “all necessary surgical care,” including those “in prisons and immigration detention centers.”
Harris noted that while she was California's attorney general, she lobbied the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide sex-reassignment surgery to inmates.
“I support policies that ensure federal prisoners and detainees have access to the medical care they need to transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or in custody,” she wrote.
“Transitional care is medically necessary, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential health care to provide transitional care.”
Decriminalizing “all drugs”
In spite of her Marijuana Prosecution RecordHarris has declared that she supports decriminalizing “all drug possession for personal use” at the federal level.
“[I] “I believe it is long past time to change the outdated and discriminatory criminalization of marijuana,” Harris wrote during her previous campaign. “Throughout my career, I have supported treating drug addiction as a public health issue.”
On the newly created policy webpage for the Harris-Waltz 2024 campaign, her team touts her past record of prosecuting drug dealers and cracking down on opioids, but makes no mention of her past support for decriminalizing marijuana.
“Last year, overdose deaths in the United States fell for the first time in five years,” the page states. “As president, she will sign a bipartisan border bill, fund detection technology to stop even more illegal drugs, and continue to fight to end the opioid epidemic.”
Ending ICE Detention
ICE uses detention orders to ask state or local law enforcement to hold people who are in the U.S. illegally and suspected of a crime until they can be transferred to federal custody.
Harris argued that law enforcement “should not act as agents of federal immigration law” and supported the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in ending the use of ICE detention.
“As President I will focus on strengthening public safety, not on tearing apart immigrant families,” she wrote.
At the time, progressives were opposed to former President Donald Trump's hardline policies aimed at curbing illegal immigration and fortifying the U.S.-Mexico border.
After Biden took office, the administration ICE Detention Rate His approval rating has fallen sharply as he has moved left on immigration policy.
On her 2024 campaign policy page, Harris reiterated her support for an “earned path to citizenship.”
Opposition to bills restricting the BDS movement
The war between Israel and Hamas is a major issue in the 2024 election cycle, but Harris in 2019 voiced opposition to legislation that would “disrupt or prohibit political boycotts, including BDS.” [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions].”
The BDS movement supports boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel over its settlement policies, and dozens of Republican state and local legislatures have passed bills targeting the movement, calling it anti-Semitic.
“I believe that an individual's right to political expression, as guaranteed by the First Amendment, must be absolutely protected,” she wrote, “and I oppose any law that could be interpreted as infringing or interfering with constitutionally protected speech.”
“At the same time, I personally oppose the BDS movement because it calls into question the legitimacy of Israel and I strongly support Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.”
Federal funding for abortion
Harris also signaled she supports repealing the Hyde Amendment, a 1970s policy that banned federal funds from being used for abortions.
Supporters of the Hyde Amendment argue that it would prevent taxpayers from having to foot the bill for controversial procedures that go against certain people's religion.
“Limiting women's options for obtaining and paying for an abortion effectively infringes on their reproductive rights. We must repeal the Hyde Amendment and require all insurance companies to provide full reproductive health coverage,” Harris said.
Biden too The positions were reversed In 2019, under pressure from the left, he opposed the Hyde Amendment.
Harris' question
The vice president-elect did not answer several questions from the ACLU, including whether he would commit to “reducing the inmate population in the federal prison system by 50 percent,” releasing 25,000 inmates from federal prisons, issuing federal guidelines “advising police on the use of deadly force,” and “reducing the immigration detention system by at least 75 percent.”
