Recently, Kamala Harris made a speech in Arizona in which she tried to talk tough on border security. The speech was intended to respond to the ongoing chaos at the border, along with attacks from Republicans about her service as Joe Biden’s “border czar.” But the latter controversy misses a fundamental distinction: To act as a “border czar,” one must first believe in national borders.
With Harris, that’s not an academic question given her prior positions. Over and above the Biden administration’s refusal to enforce immigration laws the last four years, Harris developed a record far to the left during the short time she served in the Senate. For instance, Harris argued in 2018 that immigration violations “should be a civil enforcement issue but not a criminal enforcement issue.”
Responding to leftist calls to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Harris also called for “critically re-examin[ing]” the agency, claiming “we need to probably think about starting from scratch”—a position her NBC interviewer called on the “far edge” of mainstream politics.
The specifics of her legislative record raise further questions, beginning with Harris’ support for a policy effectively outsourcing immigration policy to an international body. Just four short years ago, during Covid-19 lockdowns, she co-sponsored legislation that would “suspend all immigration enforcement-related activities in the United States” under several conditions. Under the bill, any public health emergency, national emergency regarding a communicable disease, or “global pandemic declared by the World Health Organization” would see immigration enforcement cease.
Given that Harris supported
