Vice President Kamala Harris said her “values have not changed” after a campaign spokesman claimed she was changing her stance on illegal immigration.
“I think the most important and significant thing about my policy views and decisions is that my values have not changed,” Harris said. said CNN's Dana Bash said in an interview published Thursday.
“My values haven't changed”: Kamala Harris admits she's still a far-left Democrat who supports decriminalizing illegal immigration, the job-killing Green New Deal, ending private health insurance and banning fracking. pic.twitter.com/gJYBduk3UH
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 29, 2024
At the same time, a spokesperson for Harris' presidential campaign said: said Fox News reported that the vice president has changed his stance on some immigration policies that he previously championed during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
In particular, the spokesperson claims that Harris no longer supports decriminalizing illegal immigration and believes “any unauthorized border crossing is illegal. In 2019, Harris said she supported a plan regularly touted by Democrat Julián Castro that would aim to make crossing the southern border merely a civil crime.”
Similarly, spokespeople have maintained that Harris does not support closing most of the country's migrant detention centers. In 2019, Harris said she supported closing migrant detention facilities run by private contractors working with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The spokesperson maintains that Harris now wants to “ensure sufficient resources to enforce the law, prioritize the detention and deportation of individuals who pose a threat to public safety and national security, and ensure compliance with immigration proceedings and decisions, including deportations.”
The spokesperson also claimed Harris no longer wanted to “reconsider” the role of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is tasked with enforcing federal immigration laws, including arresting and deporting illegal immigrants.
In 2018, as the “abolish ICE” movement gained steam, Harris questioned the agency's role.
I think there is definitely a need for a critical reexamination of ICE, its role, how it is managed, and what it does. You should probably consider starting from scratch, because there are so many things that could go wrong that way.and we need to address it. [Emphasis added]
Now, a spokesperson for Harris claims that she does in fact support defunding Immigration and Customs Enforcement, though Harris herself has never said that or indicated that her position on immigration has changed.
The Harris campaign's push for a major policy shift comes just as she has begun portraying herself as a border hardliner, featuring former President Donald Trump's border wall in an ad campaign.
Harris herself has long derided the idea of a border wall as “un-American” and a “medieval vanity project,” saying in 2019 that “we don't need to build a wall.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter. here.
