(The Center Square) – Vice President Kamala Harris said her part of her plan to respond to illegal immigration is to create a lawful pathway to citizenship, essentially granting amnesty to millions of people illegally in the country.
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, in a Wednesday interview with Harris, claimed illegal border crossers were “legal immigrants” and acknowledged American communities inundated by tens of thousands of them “are stressed, that feel that they’re at capacity.”
She asked Harris to respond to “communities around the country that have legal immigration, many have said, ‘We’re at capacity.’ Many feel like the government has said to them, ‘Well, adapt. Sit down. Be quiet. This is how it is.’ What would a Harris administration do for those communities who have taken in many legal immigrants but are at capacity?”
Harris replied, “We do have a broken immigration system, and it needs to be fixed.” She pointed to a U.S. Senate border bill claiming, “some of the most conservative members of the United States Congress came together with others and proposed a border security bill that would have put 1,500 new border agents on the border … that would have put more money into stemming the flow of fentanyl, which is killing Americans around our country and … would have put more resources into our ability to prosecute transnational criminal organizations, which in my career, I’ve prosecuted.”
When in the U.S. Senate, Harris adamantly opposed funding to hire more border agents and for years called for abolishing the federal agency responsible for deporting the most violent criminals. The White House and Congress have allocated record funding to combat fentanyl and the Senate border bill would have expanded illegal entry and nullified existing federal immigration law, The Center Square reported.
Harris again claimed that former President Donald Trump told the Senate to kill the bill because it “was going to fix the problem he wanted to run on. …. He killed a bill that would have actually been a solution because he wants to run on a problem instead of fixing the problem.”
The Democratic-led Senate killed the bill and refused to consider a border security bill the U.S. House passed. The House also voted to condemn Harris on her border policies and filed impeachment articles against her.
Trump and Republicans argue the Biden-Harris administration created the border crisis by dismantling programs the former president put in place to secure it and by creating new ones that violate federal immigration law. They argue there’s no need for a bill, just for current laws to be followed.
Under the Biden-Harris administration, illegal border crossers topped 2.75 million this fiscal year as of August, included in the more than 12.5 million illegal border crossers reported since fiscal 2021, The Center Square first reported.
The Center Square has fact-checked Harris’ border policies and claims here, here and here.
Harris said she would sign the Senate border bill into law if elected president. The bill would expand parole programs created by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that multiple attorneys general and federal judges argue are illegal.
The parole programs are being used to fly and bus millions of inadmissible foreign nationals into American communities nationwide who Ruhl says are “at capacity.”
According to CBP data, more than 1.3 million illegal foreign nationals were released through at least two parole programs: roughly 813,000 through the CBP One app and nearly 530,000 through CHNV (Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans).
When considering those coming from just the four countries that are part of CHNV, illegal border crossers totaled more than 672,505 Cubans; more than 485,000 Haitians, more than 444,000 Nicaraguans and nearly 873,000 Venezuelans, from fiscal 2021 through August, according to CBP data.
Under Biden-Harris, illegal border crossers have come from over 160 countries, including those from state sponsors of terrorism.
Those being released into the U.S. are given “notice to appear” documents before an immigration judge with court dates years in the future. Their NTA states they are unlawfully in the country and are “inadmissible,” The Center Square has reported. If current law were followed, the communities Ruhl claims “are at capacity” wouldn’t be, Trump and Republicans argue.
Harris also said her solution includes “a comprehensive plan that includes what we need to do to fortify not only our border but deal with the fact that we also need to create pathways for people to earn citizenship.”
President Joe Biden announced an amnesty plan in June that would facilitate illegal entry by another 2 million people, critics argue. Sixteen states sued to block his latest amnesty plan, arguing it’s illegal.
