What to Know : NPR

SAN FRANCISCO — As the Biden administration faces low approval ratings on immigration and Republicans accuse Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris of what they call “border encroachment,” Harris is fighting back, highlighting what she calls her history of tough border enforcement in campaign ads and speeches.

But a look at Harris’s record as a public official in California, the state with the largest number and share of immigrants, reveals a more nuanced picture. Longtime political observers say her experience as a daughter of immigrants has meshed with her career as a prosecutor to form a pattern: pro-immigration but tough on enforcing the law.

Dan Morain, a California political reporter who wrote a 2021 biography of Harris, says her parents took her to their respective home countries of India and Jamaica, where she discovered her roots. And as high-level scholars committed to civil rights, her parents embodied the belief that, with perseverance, great things are possible in America.

“Kamala Harris has lived the story of a second-generation immigrant,” Morain said. “It’s ingrained in her that immigration is fundamental to America.”

With immigration at the center of her life experience, Harris has a history of supporting immigrant communities and legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. But her work in California, including as the state’s attorney general, also gives her the opportunity to sing the praises of her law enforcement efforts on the issue.

Harris as DA and AG

As San Francisco district attorney from 2004 to 2010, Harris fought against abusive employers who mistreated immigrant workers. And she encouraged immigrant communities to feel safe when dealing with law enforcement.

But he also favored turning over minor immigrants arrested for crimes to immigration agents, in contrast to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ enforcement of the city’s asylum ordinance, which limited cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

“The fact that she has a negative view of people who break the law is in line with who she was,” Morain said. “I mean, she’s a prosecutor. That was her job.”

As California attorney general from 2011 to 2016, Harris brought that aggressive approach to tackling cross-border crime. At a presidential campaign rally in Atlanta last month, Harris highlighted that work.

“I’ve gone after transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers who were coming into our country illegally,” he said. “I’ve gone after them case after case and won.”

Sonja Diaz was working as a policy adviser on the Attorney General’s executive staff at the time. She says she saw Harris making this a particular target.

“He has worked hard to address the proliferation of transnational criminal organizations, not only with regard to drugs, but also the issue of human trafficking.,” he said.

Harris has developed ties with her law enforcement colleagues in Mexico and El Salvador, added Diaz, who now directs a Latin American research institute at UCLA.

“To do this kind of work, you need partnerships and bilateral relationships that can really make a difference,” he said.

But when thousands of unaccompanied children began arriving at the border in 2014, she led the charge, Diaz says. Harris convened government, philanthropic, nonprofit and corporate law firms, securing tens of millions of dollars so that children who appeared alone in immigration court would have lawyers.

“The way he did it was … identify how we as Californians under his leadership could begin to address the gaps in access to justice and representation for these kids,” Diaz said.

“She was there for us in our worst moments”

On Capitol Hill last month, supporters rallied for a bill that would offer a path to citizenship for long-term undocumented immigrants. At the rally, Angelica Salas, who runs the Los Angeles-based Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, known as CHIRLA, said she and other supporters were thrilled to have Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket.

“We know her,” he said. “She’s from California, so she knows the immigrant community. She’s been with us through our worst times.”

When Donald Trump became president in 2017 and Harris was a new U.S. senator, Salas said Harris met with CHIRLA members, reassuring undocumented immigrants fearful of Trump’s mass deportation threats that she would fight for them. She also stood with Dreamers, young undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, when Trump sought to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

And Salas argues that Harris did more than just talk when the Trump administration separated children from migrant parents at the border.

“She went into detention centers to talk to mothers whose children had been taken away,” he said. “So we have an incredible faith that she will be an incredible champion for our families.”

Biden-Harris Administration Grapples With Immigration

Now in the White House, Harris has had to confront immigration from a different angle.

He is part of a Biden administration that has faced record numbers of international migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border and attempting to enter the country illegally, often to seek asylum. Border control and asylum-adjudication agencies have been overwhelmed.

In 2021, President Biden tasked Harris with addressing the “root causes” of migration from three Central American countries that were then the source of most unauthorized migration, a role Republicans have falsely dubbed “border czar.” Analysts say Harris has made some progress in investing in jobs and promoting the rule of law, but the results of those efforts may be years away.

To more immediately reduce the number of unauthorized border crossings, the Biden administration has, among other measures, limited access to asylum.

Harris joined Biden in calling on Congress to pass a bipartisan bill, drafted earlier this year, that would pour more resources into the Border Patrol and immigration courts and allow the government to summarily expel people without hearing asylum claims if border encounters reach a certain level. Harris criticized Trump for undermining Republican support and scuppering the bill’s chances of passing.

In response to these policies, many immigrant rights groups have harshly criticized Biden for what they say are moves that undermine the legal right to seek protection from persecution. But so far, they are not attacking Harris in the same way.

Political observers say this may be because, as the November election approaches, supporters recognize that the alternative to a Harris presidency is a return to Trump’s hardline policies.

“We’ll see if it works as a political message”

While three-quarters of Americans say they believe the border is a crisis or major problem, two-thirds say immigration is good for the country, according to a recent Gallup poll, and the vast majority support an earned path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, especially Dreamers.

Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., argues that this is the backdrop to a presidential election that presents starkly divergent approaches to immigration.

“We’ve seen the Trump campaign lean into the idea that immigration is bad for the country,” he said. “But in reality, most Americans don’t believe that. They’re worried about the border, which is a specific part of the immigration debate.”

Selee predicts that Harris will try to find a middle ground, combining the two sides of his life experience.

“We’re going to see Vice President Harris talking about immigration as a good thing for the country, because she’s the daughter of two immigrants and she understands how important it is to the future of America. And at the same time [she’ll] sound like a prosecutor when he talks about the border, in particular,” he said. “We’ll see if that works as a political message.”