Vice President Kamala Harris is in hot water after a 2019 American Civil Liberties Union questionnaire resurfaced, exposing her far-left views on immigrant detention and transgender surgeries despite her recent pivot toward the center after announcing her presidential campaign.
The five-year-old document was unearthed by CNN and had remained live on the organization's website since prior to the last presidential election. It states that Harris favored taxpayer-funded care, including gender surgeries, for immigrants who were illegally in the United States and detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the basis that the care was "medically necessary."
Harris also touted that she supported closing not just privately contracted and operated ICE jails nationwide, but wanted to shutter ICE facilities in general, calling them "out of control."
Both views, among others, put Harris in a difficult position given her recent shift on many policies despite her insistence that her "values" have not changed.
Harris specifically promised to decrease the number of illegal immigrants in detention by 50% if she was elected president in 2020. Meanwhile, the Biden-Harris administration has presided over the largest number of illegal immigrants apprehended at the nation's border in U.S. history — with more than 10 million people encountered since February 2021.
"Our immigrant detention system is out of control, and I believe we must end the unfair incarceration of thousands of individuals, families and children," Harris wrote in the 2019 questionnaire. "As president, I will fight to pass my DONE (Detention Oversight Not Expansion) Act into law which would increase oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities, slash detention by at least 50%, and halt funding for the construction or expansion of new facilities."
A small percentage of illegal immigrants apprehended at the border or within the U.S. are detained by ICE through court removal proceedings. Those who are held in custody are considered public safety concerns, national security threats, or have other troubling background information that federal authorities have determined make them a risk to release.
With fewer immigrants in detention, Harris still touted that transgender immigrants ought to be able to receive medical services to continue or maintain their gender transition.
"It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition," Harris wrote in the 2019 document, adding that as California attorney general, she pushed the state's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide transition surgery to state inmates.
"I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained," said Harris. "Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment."
The Harris campaign referred the Washington Examiner to a statement that a campaign spokesman made during an interview on Fox News Tuesday morning.
"That questionnaire is not what she is proposing or running on. You want to talk about immigration or border security, she has been very clear about what she — how she has governed and intends to govern if she is president of the United States," Harris campaign communications director Michael Tyler said. "You talk about border security, for example, she has made clear the bipartisan border security package that Donald Trump blew up because he thought it would benefit him politically, if it gets on her desk, she will sign it into law."
However, one of the authors of the aforementioned Senate border security bill told the Washington Examiner on Aug. 27 that the bill's time had passed and it would not be revived, making Harris's willingness to back it, meaningless.
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Last month, Harris sketched out , in broad strokes, how she would handle the border during her address before accepting the Democratic nomination for president in Chicago.
Harris reiterated this week that she would sign a bipartisan border bill the White House negotiated with the Senate earlier this year, suggesting she, like President Joe Biden, considers the millions in border crossings to be a liability in November.
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