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HARRIS: Allowed Law-Enforcement to Ignore ICE Detainers for Deportation
On December 4, 2012, Attorney General Harris issued a memo informing all the executives of California’s state and local law-enforcement agencies that they could “make their own decisions about whether to fulfill” Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers – i.e., temporary holds that federal immigration authorities may place on municipal prisoners who are suspected of being eligible for deportation.
HARRIS: Allowed Release of Violent Illegals Previously Deported
Attorney General Harris demonstrated her low regard for immigration law after an illegal alien named Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez – a convicted felon who had been previously deported from the U.S. on five separate occasions – was released from a San Francisco prison in April 2015 and subsequently murdered a young woman named Kathryn Steinle. Harris supported Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi’s decision – which was made in accordance with the city’s sanctuary policies – to set Lopez-Sanchez free rather than turn him over to immigration authorities. Said Harris: “What needs to be looked at is comprehensive immigration reform….”
HARRIS: Says Illegal Immigration Is Not a Crime
In response to presidential candidate Donald Trump’s criticism of illegal immigration, Harris in August 2016 tweeted that “an undocumented immigrant is not a criminal.”
HARRIS: Appointed by Biden to Oversee Border Protection
On March 24, 2021, President Biden announced that he was appointing VP Harris to lead the government’s efforts to stem the massive flow of illegal migrants who had been crossing the U.S.-Mexico border since the very start of the Biden presidency. A senior administration official said that Harris’ duties would focus on “two tracks”: (a) slowing the current flow of migrants, and (b) devising a long-term strategy to address the “root causes” of the migration.
But Harris subsequently did nothing to indicate that she was serious about those border duties. She did not visit the southern border even once until June 25, 2021 — ninety-three days after her March 24 appointment by Biden. That visit came after: (a) more than 50 House Republicans demanded on June 20 that Biden relieve Harris of her border-related duties because she had done nothing to slow the massive flood of illegal aliens; and (b) former President Donald Trump, also on June 20, announced that he himself would soon make an official visit to the border along with Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
HARRIS: Pledged to Pour U.S. Money into Central America
In April 2021, VP Harris said: “We are looking at the issue of poverty and the lack, therefore, of economic opportunities.” She then explained that in order to address these problems as well as the border crisis, the U.S. would work to improve living conditions for Guatemala, so that Guatemalans could feel “that there will be an opportunity for them if they stay at home.”
HARRIS: Cites Climate Factors as a “Root Cause” of Migration Crisis
In April 2021, VP Harris said that “the issue of extreme weather conditions and the lack of climate adaptation” was causing many Central Americans to head northward to the United States.
HARRIS: Brought an Illegal Alien to Trump’s State of the Union Address
On January 30, 2018, Sen. Harris was one of several Democrats who brought illegal aliens as their guests to President Trump’s State of the Union address. Harris’ guest was Denea Joseph, an advocate for black illegal migrants. “Dreamers like Denea represent the best of who we are as a nation,” said Harris.
HARRIS: Likens ICE to the KKK
In November 2018, Sen. Harris asked Ronald Vitiello, whom President Trump had nominated to head the U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, if he believed that ICE, by the manner in which it treated illegal migrants, was creating public fear and distrust in a manner similar to how the Ku Klux Klan had sparked such emotions during its heyday in the 20th century. “Are you aware of the perception of many about how the power and the discretion at ICE is being used to enforce the laws, and do you see any parallels?” asked Harris. “I do not see a parallel between what is constitutionally mandated as it relates to enforcing the law,” Vitiello replied, adding: “I see no perception that puts ICE in the same category as the KKK.” A moment later, Harris asked: “Are you aware that there is a perception that ICE is administering its power in a way that is causing fear and intimidation, particularly among immigrants, and specifically among immigrants coming from Mexico and Central America? Are you aware of that perception?” When Vitiello again replied that he saw no parallel between ICE and the KKK, Harris asked: “Sir, how can you be the head of an agency and be unaware of how your agency is perceived by certain communities?”
HARRIS: Promoted False Claims of Abuse by Border Patrol Agents
During the week of September 19, 2021 – by which time more than 14,000 Haitians had gathered under a bridge on the banks of the Rio Grande in hopes of gaining approval for asylum in the U.S. — the media were abuzz with accusations claiming that Border Patrol agents were using whips to prevent those Haitians from illegally entering the United States. Specifically, the controversy was sparked by photographs of agents mounted on horseback attempting to corral incoming migrants. Some photos showed the agents twirling their reins to coax the horses in certain directions, and many critics misidentified the reins as whips that were being used to harm and degrade the migrants.
The “whipping” claims were ultimately proven to be entirely false, but not before a credulous VP Harris said she was “outraged” by the “horrible and deeply troubling” images shown in the photos. “Human beings should not be treated that way,” she elaborated, “and as we all know, it also evoked images of some of the worst moments of our history where that kind of behavior has been used against the indigenous people of our country, has been used against African Americans during times of slavery.” When the falsity of Harris’ claims was ultimately revealed, Harris did not apologize for her error.
HARRIS: Path to Citizenship for Illegals
On January 21, 2019, Sen. Harris said she wished to help cultivate “an America where we welcome refugees and bring people out of the shadows, and provide a pathway to citizenship.”
Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign website said: “As president, Kamala will fight to pass immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million people living in our communities and contributing to our economy.”
During an August 2024 presidential campaign rally in Arizona, Harris said she would support amnesty for the millions of illegal aliens residing in the United States, through “comprehensive [immigration] reform” and “an earned pathway to citizenship.”
HARRIS: Protect Illegals from Deportation
Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign website said that Harris “will immediately reinstate DACA and implement DAPA to protect DREAMers and their parents from deportation.”
HARRIS: Expand DACA
Vowing to expand the number of people covered by DACA from about 700,000 to approximately 6 million, Sen. Harris said in 2019: “These young people are just as American as I am, and they deserve a president who will fight for them from day one.”
HARRIS: Close Immigrant Detention Centers
Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign website said that Harris “[will] close private immigrant detention centers,” whose purpose is to keep illegal aliens in custody in order to ensure that they will be present for their eventual immigration proceedings or deportations. The closure of these centers would cause such illegals to be released into the American interior with instructions to appear for an immigration or asylum hearing at a later date – instructions that are rarely obeyed.
HARRIS: Opponent of a Border Wall
Regarding the construction of a wall along the southern U.S. border, Sen. Harris said in 2019: “Let’s get this straight: Billions of dollars for a border wall is a waste of money. American taxpayers shouldn’t foot the bill for the President’s [Trump’s] vanity project. We simply don’t need it.”
HARRIS: Proposes Merely One Extra Border Patrol Agent Per 5-6 Miles of Border
During her September 19, 2024 presidential debate with Donald Trump, VP Harris criticized Trump for having opposed a 2024 “border security bill which I supported,” and which “would have put 1,500 more border agents on the border.” But because only about 20 to 25 percent of all border agents are on duty at any given time, a mere 300 to 400 extra agents would have been patrolling America’s 1,933-mile southern border during any given shift. Former Border Patrol Agent Tom Homan characterized the bill as “ridiculous,” saying: “By the time you site these agents on the northern border, southern border, and on the maritime control, it makes zero difference.”
HARRIS: Attributing Fascist Motives to Trump’s Border Policies
On October 15, 2024, Harris sat for an hour-long interview with the popular radio host “Charlamagne tha God,” a discussion that was carried on iHeartRadio’s website and livestreamed on CNN. When a caller voiced concern that Trump, who had pledged to deport large numbers of illegal aliens, might “put anyone that doesn’t look white in camps,” Harris replied: “Yeah, so you’ve hit on a really important point and expressed it, I think so well, which is he is achieving his intended effect to make you scared. He prefers to run on a problem [illegal migration] instead of fix a problem, and we got to call it out and see it for what it is.”
HARRIS & BIDEN: Funding for Sanctuary Cities
Sen. Harris opposed the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act of 2017, which called for the withholding of federal grants to sanctuary cities. The “sanctuary” policies of these cities require city employees to refrain from notifying the federal government that illegal aliens are living in their communities.
On March 4, 2021, the Biden-Harris administration’s Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to dismiss three pending cert petitions (requests to hear a case) regarding Trump administration efforts to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities. The following day, the Court agreed to dismiss the petitions.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Health Care Coverage for Illegal Aliens
When CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Sen. Harris in May 2019 whether she supported granting taxpayer-funded benefits “to people who are in this country illegally,” she responded: “Let me just be very clear about this. I am opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education or public health, period.”
In a June 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate, co-moderator Savannah Guthrie asked the candidates to raise their hand if their proposed healthcare plan would cover “undocumented immigrants.” Harris raised her hand, as did Joe Biden and eight others.
HARRIS & BIDEN: No More Immigration Raids
To augment its effort to maximize the number of illegal aliens who are permitted to stay in the U.S. and eventually become Democrat voters, the Democratic Party pledged, in its official 2020 Platform, to “end workplace and community raids” designed to snare illegal aliens, particularly at “sensitive locations like our schools, houses of worship, health care facilities, benefits offices, and DMVs.” Joe Biden repeatedly and unambiguously echoed this position during his presidential campaign.
In an October 12, 2021 memo issued to the Citizenship & Immigration Services (CIS) and Customs & Border Protection (CBP) agencies, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that his agency would now end all mass immigration-enforcement raids at worksites in the United States.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Encourage Migration by People Dependent on Government Aid
Democrats condemned the Trump Administration’s 2019 pledge to make it more difficult for people who would be a “public charge”—i.e., dependent on government benefits—to apply for U.S. citizenship. On March 9, 2021, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the Biden-Harris administration would no longer enforce Trump’s 2019 public charge rule—on grounds that it “was not in keeping with our nation’s values.”
In February 2022, it was reported that President Biden’s deputies were rewriting the Trump-era “public charge” regulations. “Under this [new] proposed rule … individuals will not be penalized for choosing to access the [taxpayer-funded] health benefits and other supplemental government services available to them,” said DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on February 17.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Moratorium on Deportations
Regarding a Texas federal judge’s January 26, 2021 ruling against the Biden-Harris administration’s wish to place a 100-day moratorium on deportations, former ICE Acting Director Tom Homan said on February 10th that the administration was defiantly “circumventing the judge’s order” by instructing ICE officers to stop arresting illegals, and by releasing those illegals into local communities. “What kind of message does that send to the rest of the world?” Homan asked. “If you come to the country illegally, if you can get past the border patrol, don’t commit an aggravated felony, and you’re home free. You get to stay because ICE is not looking for you. It’s no longer illegal to be here illegally.”
HARRIS & BIDEN: Restore “Catch-and-Release”
Harris and Biden favor the restoration of the “catch-and-release” system of the pre-Trump era, whereby millions of asylum seekers who crossed the southern U.S. border illegally, were released into the American interior—never again to be seen by U.S. immigration authorities, in most cases. As the 2020 Democratic Party Platform said: “Democrats will end Trump Administration policies that deny protected entry to asylum seekers…. And we will end prosecution of asylum seekers at the border and policies that force them to apply from ‘safe third countries,’ which are far from safe.”
HARRIS & BIDEN: End the “Remain in Mexico” Policy
On February 6, 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the Biden-Harris administration had canceled the Trump-era agreements wherein Central American governments had pledged to place clear and reasonable limits on their people’s access to the U.S. asylum system.
On February 12, 2021, Biden-Harris stated that asylum seekers who, under President Trump’s 2019 “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP), had been forced to remain in Mexico while waiting for their cases to be resolved in the United States, would now be readily admitted into the U.S. without further delay.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Releasing Illegals Without Scheduling a Court Date
By March 2021, Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley were routinely releasing asylum-seeking migrants into the American interior without even bothering to go through the process of giving them a “Notice To Appear” (NTA) for an asylum court hearing at some future date. Instead, the migrants were hurriedly registered into a digital system and were told that they themselves would be responsible for scheduling their own asylum hearings sometime thereafter. As a Customs & Border Patrol (CBP) source told Fox News, the migrant crisis had “become so dire that BP [Border Patrol] has no choice but to release people nearly immediately after apprehension because there is no space to hold people even to do necessary NTA paperwork.” Said another CBP official with knowledge of the Biden plan: “This is insane … We will never find most of these aliens once they are released.”
HARRIS & BIDEN: Releasing Illegals without Testing Them for COVID
On February 8, 2021, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson reported: “[T]he Biden administration is releasing thousands of foreign nationals living here illegally into American neighborhoods without bothering to test them for the coronavirus. People from countries with high infection rates, living in crowded conditions, have been sent forth into the American population like COVID isn’t real. That’s happening. It is the official policy of the U.S. government.”
Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, confirmed: “We do not test the illegal aliens we release. So, we’re releasing people without knowing, which obviously puts the public at risk.”
On March 17, 2021, The Epoch Times reported that, according to the National Sheriffs Association (NSA), as many as 50% of all people illegally crossing the southern U.S. border were possibly infected with COVID-19.
HARRIS & BIDEN: COVID Relief Payments for Illegal Aliens
On March 22, 2021, The Epoch Times reported: “As Americans start to receive the latest round of [COVID-19 relief] stimulus checks, a new analysis reveals that about $4.38 billion will also go to illegal immigrants.”
The Center for Immigration Studies estimated that 2.65 million illegal “aliens temporarily present without status” had Social Security Numbers that would qualify them to receive stimulus checks.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Supporters of Immigration Bill That Weakens Border Security
On February 18, 2021, Democrats Robert Menendez and Linda Sanchez introduced — in the Senate and House, respectively — the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, a sweeping immigration-reform bill supported by Biden and Harris. The legislation sought to:
HARRIS & BIDEN: Bringing Back Previously Deported Asylum-Seekers
In response to the Biden-Harris administration’s termination of the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, the United Nations sought to help Biden and Harris: (a) track down asylum-seeking migrants who, under the Trump policy, had been removed to Mexico or Central America to await asylum processing, and (b) bring them back to the U.S. to await their asylum processing there.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Canceled Program to Deport Illegal-Alien Sex Offenders
In February 2021, the Biden-Harris administration cancelled Operation Talon, a Trump-era program designed to deport convicted sex offenders residing illegally in the United States.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Deport No Illegal Aliens Other Than Felons
During his 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden said that immigration agents should “only arrest for the purpose of dealing with a felony that’s committed [in the United States], and I don’t count drunk driving as a felony.” “We’re not going to deport anybody who has not — in this country — committed a felony in this country,” said Biden on another occasion.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Allowing Illegal Aliens to Challenge Their Arrest & Detainment
On March 4, 2021, the ICE agency told Congress that it would open an “ICE Case Review” process allowing illegal aliens to challenge their arrest and detainment if they believed they did not meet the Biden-Harris administration’s new standard, which only allowed for the arrest, detainment, or deportation of convicted aggravated felons, terrorists, gang members, or national security threats.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Outlawed the Term “Illegal Alien”
On April 19, 2021, the Biden-Harris administration’s acting directors of ICE and CBP distributed memoranda prohibiting officers from using the phrase “illegal alien,” and requiring the phrase “undocumented migrant” instead.
HARRIS & BIDEN: De Facto Amnesty for Illegal Aliens Ordered Deported
In early May of 2021, the Biden-Harris administration reversed a proposed rule change by former President Trump that would have prevented the federal government from continuing to issue work permits to illegal aliens who had received final deportation orders from federal immigration judges.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Using the U.S. Military to Resettle Illegals into Various U.S. States
On July 14, 2021, Fox News host Tucker Carlson issued a blockbuster report in which he stated: “This show has confirmed that the Biden administration has enlisted the U.S. military to move illegal immigrants secretly around our country. That is happening at Laughlin Air Force base in Texas.”
Center for Immigration Studies senior national fellow Todd Bensman provided details: “What’s happening most of the time is that they [the illegals] are boarding buses and heading into America’s heartland. A conveyor belt of commercial and charter buses … are carrying tens of thousands, sight unseen, from Texas, Arizona, and California borderlands northward, and they are dropping their Haitian, Venezuelan, Cuban, and Central American family units in [other states all over the U.S.].”
From January 2021 through October 2021, the Biden-Harris administration oversaw the flight transportation of 44,957 illegal border crossers into the American interior, while a mere 620 such illegals were denied access to those flights — an approval rate of more than 98.6 percent.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Influx of Fentanyl Skyrockets
The total amount of the deadly drug fentanyl seized by U.S. border agents grew from approximately 2,800 pounds in Fiscal Year 2019, to 4,800 pounds in FY 2020, to 11,200 pounds in FY 2021, to 5,300 pounds during the first half of FY 2022.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Democrat Congressman Says “It’s Literally an Open Border”
During an April 22, 2022 appearance on the Fox News Channel, Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas said: “[W]hat we’re seeing is it’s literally an open border. It’s an open border.”
HARRIS & BIDEN: Making It Easier for Terrorists to Enter the U.S.
In late June 2022, the State and Homeland Security Departments, according to a policy published in the Federal Register, amended federal immigration laws in order to permit the granting of “immigration benefits or other status” to foreigners who had provided “insignificant material support” — e.g., “humanitarian assistance” or “routine commercial transactions” — to designated terror groups. “The policy shift is fueling concerns that the Biden administration wants to make it easier for individuals who work with or for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the country’s paramilitary fighting force that has killed hundreds of Americans, to enter the country,” reported the Washington Free Beacon. “Notice of the change came several days before the Biden administration and hardline Iranian government resumed talks aimed at securing a revamped version of the 2015 nuclear deal.”
HARRIS & BIDEN: Drug Cartels’ Earnings Skyrocket
A July 25, 2022 New York Times report stated that according to Homeland Security Investigations, the cartels and coyotes responsible for smuggling migrants illegally into the U.S. were now earning $13 billion per year under President Biden’s lax border agencies — a figure 26 times larger than the $500 million that the cartels had earned annually under former President Trump’s border policies. “The cartels and coyotes earn the money via smuggling contracts, high-interest loans, and border extortion, and by trafficking indebted migrants into indentured-servitude, cartel-controlled jobs throughout the United States,” said the Times piece.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Secret Arrangements to Usher Multitudes of Illegals into the U.S.
In 2022, the Biden-Harris administration launched a “lawful pathways” strategy designed to artificially and deceptively suppress the official tally of people who were crossing America’s southern border illegally — so as to minimize the negative political consequences that might afflict the administration if such inordinately large numbers of illegal newcomers continued to swarm across the border in a chaotic, unregulated manner. Under “lawful pathways,” the DHS began trying to persuade tens of thousands of aspiring illegal border-crossers each month to resolve that, rather than sneaking into the United States undetected, they would instead use the CBP One smartphone application to make formal appointments to meet with U.S. officials at any of 43 separate land ports-of-entry in the American interior. When the aliens subsequently arrived at the designated land ports in order to keep those appointments, DHS welcomed them, and U.S. Customs officials quietly “paroled” them into the country. The aliens were then free to travel to any U.S. location of their choice and await their eventual asylum hearing.
In January 2023, the Biden-Harris administration initiated a “direct-flight” program as a new, added facet of the “lawful pathways” strategy. According to data obtained by the Center for Immigration Studies, this program flew at least 221,456 illegal aliens from their homelands to airports across the United States between January and mid-September of 2023. These included 76,582 Haitians, 63,360 Venezuelans, and 46,794 Cubans, as well as many others from Colombia, Nicaragua, Ukraine, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. These migrants also used the aforementioned CBP One smartphone application to request “advance travel authorizations” to take commercial passenger flights (“at their own expense”) directly to American airports in their cities of choice, where they were greeted by U.S. Customs officers who secretly “paroled” them into the United States.
From March 2023 through February 2024, this direct-flight program transported a total of some 320,000 new illegal aliens into the United States.
HARRIS & BIDEN: 98 Terrorists Arrested at Border During FY 2022
As of October 25, 2022, a total of 98 known or suspected terrorists had been arrested at the U.S. southern border during fiscal year 2022 — while the number of those who had escaped detection at the border was unknown. By contrast, only 26 terror watchlist people had been arrested at the border during the previous five years combined – an average of just 5 per year.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Pressuring Banks to Approve Loans to Illegal Aliens
On October 12, 2023, multiple government agencies under the Biden-Harris administration posted statements threatening banks with federal investigations if they failed to approve cheap loans to illegal migrants with weak financial and credit credentials.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Illegal Border-Crossers in FY 2023 Exceeded Populations of 11 States
According to a Daily Caller review of federal data, the roughly 1.5 million migrants who went free into the American interior after crossing the southern U.S. border illegally in fiscal year 2023 exceeded the populations of eleven separate U.S. states. That 1.5 million figure included 908,669 illegals who were released by the Border Patrol following apprehension, along with another 600,000+ “got-aways” who were never apprehended.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Massive Increase in Border Patrol Encounters with Illegal Aliens
During the last three full months of the Trump administration, the number of Border Patrol encounters with illegal aliens at America’s southern border was just under 73,000 per month. Under Biden-Harris, that figure skyrocketed. During the first three-and-a-half years of their administration, Border Patrol agents encountered more than 8.4 million illegal border crossers – an average of approximately 191,000 per month, or 2.3 million per year. The high-water mark for a single month was 301,982 encounters in December 2023.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Lawsuit against Texas over Immigration Law
On January 3, 2024, the Biden-Harris administration sued Texas over what the administration characterized as that state’s “incredibly extreme” immigration law, Senate Bill 4 (SB 4), which not only gave local law-enforcement in Texas the authority to arrest migrants, but also gave judges statewide the power to order the removal and deportation of criminal aliens. Asserting that the state of Texas “cannot run its own immigration system,” Biden-Harris argued that SB 4 encroached upon the federal government’s “exclusive authority” to enforce immigration law.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Support Allowing 1.4 Million Illegals into the U.S. Each Year
In 2024, Harris has voiced her support for S. 4361, the border bill that Senate Democrats first introduced in May 2024. She has said: “I strongly supported the comprehensive border security bill written … by a bipartisan group of senators, including one of the most conservative members of the United States Congress…. It was the strongest border security bill we have seen in decades.”
But aside from hiring an insignificant number of additional border security agents and funding the purchase of 100 additional inspection machines capable of detecting fentanyl, S. 4361 would do nothing to secure the U.S. southern border. The Heritage Foundation reports that under the terms of the bill:
Harris has blamed Donald Trump for having prevented the passage of S. 4361: “He picked up the phone and called some friends in Congress and said, ‘stop the bill.’ Because, you see, he prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.”
Harris’ depiction of S. 4361 as a bipartisan effort was false. The lone Republican senator who voted in favor of advancing the bill was Lisa Murkowski, one of the most leftwing Republicans in the Senate.
Nor was the Senate’s failure to advance S. 4361 attributable solely to Republican opposition. Indeed, six Democrat senators voted against it as well.
When the Senate Republicans (other than Murkowski) opposed S. 4361, President Biden said: “Congressional Republicans do not care about securing the border or fixing America’s broken immigration system. If they did, they would have voted for the toughest border enforcement in history. By blocking the bipartisan border agreement, they put partisan politics ahead of our country’s national security.”
HARRIS & BIDEN: $450,000 Apiece to Illegals Separated at the Border under Trump
On October 28, 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden-Harris administration was contemplating the possibility of issuing massive compensatory payments to illegal-migrant families whose members had been separated from one another for extended periods — i.e., parents separated from children — when apprehended by immigration authorities at America’s southern border under the Trump administration’s so-called “zero-tolerance policy,” which was in effect from April to June of 2018. According to people familiar with the matter, the average payment was expected to be approximately $450,000 per person — for a grand total of about $1 billion in taxpayer funds.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Illegals from 160 Countries
On January 12, 2022, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy told Breitbart News: “It’s not just people from Central America. It’s people from 160 different countries. They have been catching people from Yemen, who are on the terrorist watchlist. Why would they be coming to America that way?”
HARRIS & BIDEN: Taxpayer-Funded Legal Help for Illegal Aliens
On January 21, 2022, Axios.com reported that the Biden-Harris administration was preparing to launch a new Legal Access at the Border (LAB) program — overseen by the Justice Department — to help prepare illegal migrants in seven border towns for the experience of navigating their way through the U.S. immigration system.
HARRIS & BIDEN: At Least 647,000 Criminal Aliens Roaming Free in U.S.
On September 25, 2024, ICE reported that, among the more than 7 million illegal aliens who were under final deportation orders but were not being detained in ICE’s custody, there were 425,431 convicted criminals and 222,141 with pending criminal charges – all of them free to roam the streets of American communities nationwide. According to Fox News: “Those include 62,231 convicted of assault, 14,301 convicted of burglary, 56,533 with drug convictions and 13,099 convicted of homicide. An additional 2,521 have kidnapping conviction and 15,811 have sexual assault convictions. There are an additional 1,845 with pending homicide charges, 42,915 with assault charges, 3,266 with burglary charges, and 4,250 with assault charges.”
HARRIS & BIDEN: Covering up the Dangers of Their Open-Borders Policies
In testimony he gave on September 20, 2024, Aaron Heitke, the retired Chief Patrol Agent of the U.S. Border Patrol, said:
“The only true consequence we have to slow down and discourage people from coming to the United States illegally, is sending them back to their country of origin. Throughout the first three-plus years of this [Biden-Harris] administration, I saw a steady decrease in countries we could send people back to…. The inability to send people home meant that most people being arrested for illegal entry would either have to be detained or released. The current administration, however, from day one, made a point of decreasing the amount of detention space available nationwide…. The fact that so many illegal aliens are being released into the United States has spread worldwide very quickly. As this happened, the numbers the Border Patrol encountered illegally crossing the border increased exponentially.”
HARRIS & BIDEN: National Security Threats Entering the U.S.
A DHS Inspector General report which was released at the beginning of October 2024, stated that: “Under current processes, CBP and ICE cannot ensure they are keeping high-risk noncitizens without identification from entering the country. Additionally, TSA cannot ensure its vetting and screening procedures prevent high-risk noncitizens who may pose a threat to the flying public from boarding domestic flights.”
According to a report released by the House Judiciary Committee on October 3, 2024, more than 1.7 million migrants encountered by immigration authorities at America’s southern border during the Biden-Harris administration hailed from 26 countries “of special interest” – i.e., nations known to promote terrorism and to pose a threat to U.S. national security. Among these nations were Afghanistan, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, North Korea, China, and Venezuela.
BIDEN: Federal Funding for Sanctuary Cities
During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden made clear his belief that sanctuary cities should be fully eligible for federal funding.
BIDEN: Promoting Citizenship for Illegal Aliens
When Joe Biden ran for president in 2020, he made it clear throughout his campaign that he was in favor of granting citizenship to virtually every illegal alien residing in the United States—roughly 11 million people, by Biden’s estimate. When discussing this issue, he gave particular emphasis to those illegals affected by former President Obama’s 2012 DACA policy.
Biden also stressed the importance of granting citizenship to so-called “DREAMers” – i.e., people who would be eligible to benefit from the DREAM Act — legislation intended to protect almost anyone who entered the U.S. illegally when they were under the age of 16.
During an October 2020 presidential debate with Donald Trump, Biden said: “Within 100 days [of taking over the presidency], I’m going to send to the United States Congress a [proposed bill for] pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people. And all of those so-called Dreamers, those DACA kids, they’re going to be immediately certified to be able to stay in this country and put on a path to citizenship. We owe them, we owe them.”
True to his word, Biden, on his first day in office as U.S. President, sent to Congress an immigration bill—the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021—proposing to create a path to citizenship for millions of illegal aliens. That same day, Biden also issued a memorandum “to preserve and fortify DACA.”
BIDEN: No Border Wall
In March 2020, presidential candidate Joe Biden stated: “We don’t need a wall.” “There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my Administration,” he told NPR during an August 2020 interview.
Biden followed through on his promise when, on his first day as president, he issued a formal proclamation which stated that “building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border [between the U.S. and Mexico] is not a serious policy solution,” but rather, “is a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security.” “It shall be the policy of my Administration,” he added, “that no more American taxpayer dollars be diverted to construct a border wall.”
BIDEN: Spent Nearly $500,000 to Build a Wall Around His Vacation Home
On August 19, 2022, Breitbart.com reported: “President Joe Biden is spending nearly half a million taxpayer dollars to build a security fence around his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware…. The construction of a security fence around Biden’s beach house comes as his DHS has canceled contracts to continue building [a] border wall along the highly porous United States-Mexico border….”
BIDEN: Vowed to End Almost All Deportations
In a Democratic primary debate in March 2020, Joe Biden vowed that during his presidential administration’s first 100 days, “no one, no one will be deported at all.” “From that point on,” he added, “the only deportations that will take place are [for] commissions of felonies in the United States of America.”
On another occasion during his 2020 campaign, Biden said that immigration agents should “only arrest for the purpose of dealing with a felony that’s committed [in the United States], and I don’t count drunk driving as a felony”—even though ICE reported 49,106 criminal convictions for DUI in fiscal year 2019 alone.
On his first day as president in January 2021, Biden proudly demonstrated his resolve in opposing deportations by issuing an executive order that revoked a 2017 order by which former President Trump had prioritized the removal of illegal aliens who had “committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense,” or who had “abused any program related to receipt of public benefits” (e.g., welfare and food stamps).
In accordance with President Biden’s clearly articulated intention to suspend virtually all deportations of illegal aliens, an internal ICE memo dated January 21, 2021 instructed ICE agents to immediately “stop all removals.”
BIDEN: Protect Criminal Illegals from the Police
When candidate Biden was asked in March 2020 whether “undocumented immigrants, arrested by local police, [should] be turned over to immigration officials,” he replied: “Look, we are a nation of immigrants. Our future rests upon the Latino community being fully integrated…. Xenophobia is a disease.”
BIDEN: Expanded Taxpayer-Funded Attorneys for Migrant Children in U.S.
In a May 18, 2021 presidential memorandum, President Biden expanded the ability of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) who had come to the U.S. illegally, to secure legal representation. Toward that end, Biden asked Congress to approve $1.5 billion in taxpayer funds to help local and state agencies cover the costs of additional public defenders. Biden also re-established the White House Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable to “prioritize civil legal aid and expand access to federal programs,” according to a White House press release.
BIDEN: Says Mass Migration Makes U.S. Demographics “So Much Better”
During a September 30, 2022 speech for National Hispanic Heritage Month, President Biden celebrated what he viewed as the political benefits of the mass migration of Mexicans and Central Americans into the United States. “When in American history has there been a circumstance where one ethnicity has the potential to have such a profound impact on the direction of a country?” he asked rhetorically. “Twenty-six percent of every child who’s in school today speaks Spanish — 26 percent,” Biden continued. “We’ve had large waves of immigration before but the thing is, we just have so much opportunity to make this country so much better. I really mean it … so as my father would say, ‘Let’s go get ’em.’”
BIDEN: Subsidized Healthcare for Illegal Aliens
On April 13, 2023, President Biden announced that the hundreds of thousands of migrants who had been brought to the U.S. illegally as minors and were covered by the Obama-era DACA program, would soon be able to apply for Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges. “They’re American in every way except for on paper,” Biden said in a Twitter video. “We need to give DREAMers the opportunities and support they deserve.”
On May 3, 2024, Politico reported: “President Joe Biden … announced a final rule that will open up Obamacare plans to tens of thousands of immigrants who came to the United States as children but do not qualify for government health insurance because they lack legal status. Federal health officials estimate that roughly 100,000 people enrolled in the [DACA] program will sign up for subsidized plans through the health insurance marketplace over the next year under the rule, which the Biden administration proposed last year.”
WALZ: Believes That Restrictions on Immigration Are Racist
Walz believes that legal restrictions on immigration are basically racist because they tend to prevent Hispanics and other nonwhites from entering the United States.
WALZ: Social Services for Illegal Aliens
Walz claims that social services should be made available to all U.S. residents regardless of their immigration status.
WALZ: Amnesty for Illegal Aliens
Walz argues that illegal aliens should be offered amnesty if they have been productive members of American society.
WALZ: Path to Citizenship for Illegal Aliens
In November 2006, Rep. Walz voiced his support for providing illegal aliens with a “path to citizenship.”
In October 2018, Rep. Walz called for providing “DREAMers” — i.e., illegal migrants who first came to the U.S. as minors — with a path to citizenship.
In 2021, Gov. Walz sent a letter to congressional leaders exhorting them to pass legislation providing amnesty, “a clean path to citizenship,” “permanent protection,” and “permanent relief” for “essential workers, Dreamers, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, and their families.” Walz’s letter said that this would be “the right thing to do, not just for them, but for the country.”
WALZ: Loosened Restrictions Against Terrorists Entering the U.S.
In 2007, Rep. Walz co-sponsored H.R. 2940, which sought to make it easier to waive grounds of inadmissibility to the U.S. for people suspected of having ties to terrorism. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) reports that those grounds included: “(1) having engaged in terrorist activity; (2) being engaged in or likely to engage in terrorist activity after entry; (3) having incited terrorist activity; (4) serving as a representative of a terrorist organization; and (5) being a member of a terrorist organization.”
WALZ: Supporter of Funding for Sanctuary Cities
Rep. Walz repeatedly voted against proposals to defund sanctuary cities — where city employees are required to refrain from notifying the federal government about illegal aliens who are living in their communities — in 2007, 2014, 2015, and once again in 2015.
WALZ: Sought to Make Minnesota a “Sanctuary State” for Illegals
Aiming to make Minnesota a sanctuary state for illegal aliens, Rep. Walz in 2018 issued a statement that said: “My position on Minnesota becoming a sanctuary state boils down to who has the responsibility for enforcing immigration laws. Here’s what I believe: Congress has given federal agencies the authority to enforce immigration laws in Minnesota, and I support their doing so. Congress has not given local law enforcement that same authority. The role of law enforcement is to enforce state and local laws, not federal immigration laws, and I strongly believe that they should not do so.”
WALZ: Opposed to Permitting Local Police to Collaborate with Feds
During his years in Congress, Rep. Walz consistently opposed the 287(g) program which authorized state and local law-enforcement to collaborate with the federal government to enforce federal immigration laws. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) reports that Walz voted “against funding the program in 2011 and 2013, and against preventing funds from being used to terminate 287(g) agreements in 2012.”
WALZ: Boasts of Having “Helped Resettle Countless” Illegals
In an October 2017 interview, Rep. Walz boasted that his office had “helped resettle countless people [illegal migrants] into this community.’”
WALZ: Sponsored the DREAM Act of 2017
In 2017, Rep. Walz co-sponsored H.R. 3440, the DREAM Act, which sought to grant lawful permanent resident status on a conditional basis to many deportable aliens who had first arrived in the U.S. as minors.
WALZ: Co-Sponsor of Bill to Allow People from Terror-Tied Countries to Enter U.S.
In 2017, Rep. Walz was an original co-sponsor of H.R. 724, the Statue of Liberty Values (SOLVE) Act, which aimed to cancel former President Trump’s executive order barring entry to the U.S. for foreign nationals from countries with ties to terrorism.
WALZ: Permanent Resident Status & Protected Status for Illegals
In 2018, Rep. Walz co-sponsored H.R. 4253, the American Promise Act, which directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to provide permanent resident status to illegal aliens who had been granted Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) or Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and who had been continuously physically present in the United States for at least three years.
In 2018 as well, Rep. Walz co-sponsored H.R. 4384, the Act to Sustain the Protection of Immigrant Residents Earned Through TPS Act, (ASPIRE Act), which would provide renewable protected status for six years to any illegal aliens who: (a) had been present in the U.S. for at least five years, and (b) had been granted, or were eligible for, Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) or Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
And again in 2018, Rep. Walz co-sponsored H.R. 5072, the Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act, which directed the DHS to provide permanent resident status to any “qualifying Liberian national who: (1) has been continuously present in the United States between November 20, 2014, through the date of status adjustment application; or (2) is the spouse, child, or unmarried son or daughter of such an alien.”
WALZ: Driver’s Licenses for Illegals
In March 2023, Gov. Walz signed into law a bill that would enable as many as 77,000 eligible illegal aliens to legally obtain driver’s licenses — thereby reversing a 20-year-old state law that required anyone seeking a driver’s license to be either a legal resident of Minnesota or an American citizen. Asserting that the new law would “make our communities safer for all Minnesotans,” Walz stated: “We look at our most vulnerable people and we see neighbors. And that’s why we’re giving undocumented Minnesotans the opportunity to get a driver’s license and live their lives with dignity.”
WALZ: Free College for Illegals
In May 2023, Gov. Walz approved an education funding measure that authorized the use of state tax dollars to pay all college and university tuition costs for illegal aliens from families with annual incomes below $80,000. In most states, such benefits are typically reserved only for legal immigrants and American citizens.
WALZ: Opposed to a Border Wall
On July 30, 2024, Gov. Walz told CNN that presidential candidate Donald Trump’s pledge to finish the construction of a wall along America’s southern border was nothing more than a hollow talking point. Said Walz: “I always say, let me know how high it is. If it’s 25 feet, then I’ll invest in the 30-foot ladder factory. That’s not how you stop this [illegal migration]. You stop this [by] using electronics, you stop it [by] using more border control agents, and you stop it by having a legal system that allows for that tradition of allowing folks to come here, just like my relatives did to come here, be able to work and establish the American dream.”
DEMOCRATIC PARTY: Federal Funding for Sanctuary Cities
Democrats in 2017 condemned a Trump executive order that called for the denial of federal grants to any sanctuary cities that refused to alert federal authorities to the presence of illegal aliens in those locales. The Democrats portrayed Trump’s order as a “shameful” and “divisive” measure that would “betray our nation’s values.”
DEMOCRATIC PARTY: No Border Wall
In its official 2020 Platform, the Democratic Party condemned the construction of “an unnecessary, wasteful, and ineffective wall on the southern border.”
DEMOCRATIC PARTY: Opposes the Arrest of Illegals Charged with Theft in U.S.
On March 7, 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 7511, the “Laken Riley Act” — which sought to require federal officials to arrest illegal aliens charged with committing theft in the United States — by a vote of 251-170. All voting Republicans and 37 Democrats supported the bill, while 170 Democrats voted against it. The legislation was named in honor of Laken Riley, a young Georgia nursing student who had been murdered in February by an illegal alien from Venezuela who was also a member of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang. Prior to killing Miss Riley, the perpetrator had already been arrested: (a) in New York City for driving an unregistered car with a 5-year-old child inside, and (b) in Athens, Georgia for stealing food and clothing from a Walmart store.
DEMOCRATIC PARTY: Opposes the Deportation of Illegals Who Assault Police
On May 15, 2024, a majority of House Democrats voted against the “Detain and Deport Illegal Aliens Who Assault Cops Act,” which called for federal law enforcement to detain illegal aliens in the United States who faced charges for having assaulted police officers. The measure passed the House in a 265-148 vote. The Yay votes were cast by 211 Republicans and 54 Democrats, while all 148 Nay votes were cast by Democrats.
TRUMP: His Immigration Plan
When Donald Trump ran for the presidency in 2016, he laid out a 10-Point Plan on Immigration, which remains the foundation of his current plan:
TRUMP: Love of Country as the Foundation of Immigration Policy
In a January 2018 speech, President Trump put his immigration philosophy into very plain language: “The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling, and the underprivileged all over the world. But as President, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern, is for America’s children, America’s struggling workers, and America’s forgotten communities.”
In an Oval Office address a year later, Trump attempted to make his case for border security directly to the American people. He stated, among other things: “Some have suggested [that] a barrier is immoral. Then why do wealthy politicians build walls, fences, and gates around their homes? They don’t build walls because they hate the people on the outside but because they love the people on the inside. The only thing that is immoral is [for] the politicians to do nothing and continue to allow more innocent people to be so horribly victimized.”
TRUMP: Opposes Immigrants Who Would Be Dependent on Government
In 2019 the Trump administration — reasoning from the premise that immigrants to the United States should not impose social or economic burdens on the American taxpayers — announced that it would expand the list of government benefits that it took into consideration when defining a person as a “public charge” – i.e., someone “likely at any time to become primarily dependent on the government for subsistence.” That designation would count against an immigrant seeking to upgrade or extend his visa status, or to apply for citizenship.
TRUMP: Established “Safe Zones” for Refugees in the Middle East
Understanding that it is impossible to adequately screen potential refugees from certain countries that are chaotic hotbeds of terrorism and extremism, President Trump sought to find ways of helping refugees without risking the lives and safety of the American people. In January 2017, for instance, he persuaded Saudi Arabia’s King Salman to join the U.S. in supporting the creation of safe zones in Syria and Yemen, where refugees from the Middle East could be housed and sheltered when fleeing war and terror. Trump also persuaded Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to support safe zones for refugees displaced by war and terrorism in the region.
TRUMP: The So-Called “Muslim Ban”
Virtually every American has heard about President Trump’s infamous “Muslim ban.” In January 2020, Joe Biden characterized that “ban” as a “morally wrong” manifestation of “anti-Muslim bias” that constituted “a betrayal of all our foundations of American history and American freedom, religious freedom.”
The term “Muslim ban,” as employed by Biden and fellow Democrats, refers to the fact that President Trump, professing a desire “to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America,” issued a 2017 executive order calling for a temporary suspension of almost all travel and refugee admissions to the U.S. from seven nations that were hotbeds of Islamic terrorism and/or civil war: Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, and Syria. The order also mandated the implementation of an “extreme vetting” process for any and all immigrants and visitors to the U.S.
And how did President Trump select the seven aforementioned Muslim-majority countries as targets for his executive action? Actually, he chose precisely the same seven countries that had been named in the Visa Waiver Program Improvement & Terrorist Travel Prevention Act, which passed easily through Congress and was signed into law by President Obama in December 2015.
TRUMP: Transformation of U.S. Policy on Asylum Applications
In the decades before Trump’s presidency, only a small percentage of asylum seekers from Central America chose to present themselves to U.S. authorities at any of the 300+ official ports of entry along the southern U.S. border. Instead, they elected to breach the border at locations somewhere between those ports of entry, in the midst of an arid desert, where, as soon as they had planted their feet firmly on the American side of the border with Mexico, they would actively seek to get taken them into custody by U.S. border personnel. Why? Because they understood that in most cases, they had no legitimate basis for applying for asylum — i.e., protection from potential “persecution” by authorities in their homeland — and would likely be denied entry to America.
By contrast, if aspiring asylees could somehow manage to sneak into U.S. territory before making their asylum requests, they stood a good chance of being released into the U.S. interior, along with a notice instructing them to report for a formal asylum hearing at some date in the very distant future, given the massive backlog of cases in American immigration courts. This of course would give such people plenty of time to simply disappear, never again to be seen by U.S. immigration authorities.
Seeking to end this absurd, lawless, and dangerous practice, the Trump administration announced in April 2018 that the U.S. would pursue a “zero-tolerance” policy whereby every adult caught illegally crossing the border would be subject to criminal prosecution.
In response, the Democratic Party launched a vicious propaganda campaign accusing Trump of pursuing a policy of forced “family separation.” Joe Biden denounced “this administration’s policies that literally rip babies from the arms of their mothers and fathers” as “one of the darkest moments in our history.”
The origin of the so-called “separation” policy dated back to 2015, when California federal judge Dolly Gee, an appointee of President Obama, ruled that all children apprehended while crossing the border illegally, even when accompanied by an adult, could not be detained for more than 20 days. The government’s only alternatives, then, were to either: (a) “separate” the family members by releasing the children after 20 days but continuing to detain the adults, or (b) release the entire family into the American interior after 20 days. The Obama-Biden administration usually chose to release the families.
The Trump administration deviated from the Obama-Biden policy and implemented its new “zero tolerance” standard — which kept adults in detention while releasing children as required by Judge Dee’s 2015 court order.
As families were being “separated” under Trump, the Democratic and media condemnations were relentless. On June 20, 2018, Trump, under mounting political pressure from Democrats and Republicans alike, signed an executive order ending the practice of separating children from their illegal-alien parents at the border, while keeping the zero-tolerance policy intact. In other words, it would now be permissible to detain adult migrants and their children together indefinitely.
But in practice, it became impossible for the government to keep migrant families together in detention centers for any extended period of time, simply because their numbers were far greater than the capacity of the detention centers to hold them. Thus, many of them had to be released.
In an effort to find some politically feasible way to circumvent the Democrats’ uncompromising devotion to open borders, Trump in May 2019 implemented the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), stipulating that foreign individuals seeking admission to the U.S. from Mexico without proper documentation, could be returned to Mexico where they would wait for the duration of their immigration proceedings. In short, U.S. border agencies would no longer have to release migrants into the United States prior to their asylum hearings.
In May 2019 as well, President Trump announced: “On June 10th, the United States will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP. The Tariff will gradually increase [to as much as 25%] until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied, … at which time the Tariffs will be removed.” In response to this threat of tariffs, the Mexican government implemented a new policy which made it more difficult for migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador to pass through Mexico on their way to the United States.
And on July 15, 2019, President Trump announced a plan that would bar most migrants from applying for asylum after illegally crossing America’s southern border, unless they had first been unsuccessful in seeking asylum in one of the “safe” countries that they traversed on their way to the United States. In other words, would-be asylees from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, or Nicaragua would be ineligible for asylum in the U.S. unless they had first applied in Mexico and been rejected. This was in keeping with existing American law. In the summer and early fall of 2019, the Trump administration signed such “safe-country” asylum agreements with the governments of the four aforementioned Central American nations.
These agreements—in conjunction with the Migrant Protection Protocols and the threatened tariffs against Mexico—enabled President Trump to single-handedly circumvent the relentless obstructionism of the Democrats. What Congress had failed for decades to get done, Trump himself achieved on the diplomatic front in just a few months, with no help whatsoever from Congress. It was one of the most extraordinary political accomplishments in American history.