Fox Information was by no means going to be a pleasant venue for Vice President Kamala Harris. In an look on Particular Report With Bret Baier, she was requested about a few of the American proper’s prime fascinations and speaking factors: gender-affirming surgical procedures, Joe Biden’s psychological acuity, the prospect of conflict with Iran. And — after all — she acquired robust questions on immigration coverage and the southern border.
It was in answering these questions that Harris demonstrated how a lot the Democratic Occasion is transferring proper — towards the ideological heart on immigration — below the banner of her candidacy.
She selected to not defend the advantage of immigration, or of immigrants themselves, and continued to cede the enjoying subject to the appropriate. There have been no references to the nation’s immigrant roots or the worth of these immigrants (right here legally or not) that Baier saved asking about. And there was no condemnation of Donald Trump’s said plans for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. She didn’t point out it, whilst he pitches invoking archaic legal guidelines to spherical up and deport thousands and thousands of individuals residing in america.
As an alternative, Harris used the interview to additional distance herself from her previous and her social gathering’s left flank on immigration. Did she remorse the immigrant-friendly positions she took in 2019 to permit undocumented immigrants to use for driver’s licenses, qualify totally free tuition at some universities, or acquire public medical health insurance below a common plan?
“Pay attention, that was 5 years in the past, and I’m very clear that I’ll observe the legislation. I’ve made that assertion over and over,” Harris responded.
If that’s the case, Baier adopted up, why did she choose a working mate, Gov. Tim Walz, who signed a few of those self same proposals into state legislation in Minnesota?
Harris paused earlier than saying that her ticket is “very clear that we should assist and implement federal legislation and that’s precisely what we are going to do.”
And so the sample repeated itself: Given alternatives to defend migrants within the face of traditional right-wing fearmongering (as when she was requested about “single grownup males who went on to commit heinous crimes”), Harris would cede the premise and pivot to the bipartisan border invoice Biden proposed earlier this yr that Trump helped tank. She did the identical when requested if she regretted the Biden administration’s repeal of Trump-era government orders limiting immigration — citing a invoice the White Home proposed that she mentioned would’ve “fastened our immigration system.” However she omitted that it additionally would have supplied a pathway to citizenship for sure undocumented immigrants already residing within the US.
This all continues a development for Harris. Simply final week, at a city corridor hosted by the Spanish-language media community Univision, Harris was twice introduced with alternatives to invoke and condemn Trump’s mass deportation plans when chatting with attendees who had household who had been deported or unable to get well being care as a result of they lacked authorized standing. She handed on that likelihood, as an alternative referencing her previous assist for Deferred Motion for Childhood Arrivals program recipients earlier than pivoting to speak about reviving the bipartisan border invoice.
And since turning into the nominee and headlining a nationwide social gathering conference that tended to reference immigration within the context of needing extra hardline border insurance policies, she’s continued to push for a bipartisan border invoice that many progressive and liberal immigration advocacy teams and members of her personal social gathering don’t assist. These critics are nonetheless biting their tongues — stating the necessity to unite to win the election and preserve a roundly anti-immigrant Trump from controlling the manager department — however that truce will solely maintain so far as November 5.
