illegal immigration
Kamala Harris, Immigration Extremist
From The Center for Immigration Studies
By Todd Bensman
AUSTIN, Texas — During the violent social justice upheavals of 2019-2020, Democratic primary candidate for President Sen. Kamala Harris told America exactly where she stood on illegal border immigration, no matter how she might spin it now that she is the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for president.
American voters should not forget the politically extreme positions she staked just a few years ago, as thousands of “Occupy ICE” hooligans were disrupting detention and deportation operations. “Abolish ICE” was the street chant as arson fires burned major cities and an AR-15-armed Antifa terrorist named Willem van Spronsen died in a fiery July 2019 attack on a Washington State ICE detention facility.
What American voters should remember about this period, now that they regard the border crisis as a top 2024 campaign issue, is that Harris went all-in with the most extreme agenda on border security in American history and has neither said nor acted once in any way contrary to those early positions, other than to tone down rhetoric while serving as vice president.
Taking Up the Extremist Cudgel
Just one week after ICE agents killed van Spronsen and found his manifesto demanding an end to corporate profiteering from private detention centers and their human suffering, Sen. Harris all but rewarded the attack with a tweet that mainstreamed the terrorist demand:
During a June 2019 televised primary debate, she reiterated that “I will get rid of the private detention centers.”
Harris was always at the forefront of Democratic primary contenders adopting the extreme immigration policy demands of a violent progressive movement high on the smoke of anti-police BLM arson, antifa attacks on Trump supporters, and Occupy ICE campfires. Indeed, Harris began messaging as her own the most fringe ideas about immigration and the border ever heard on the main American public square.
Abolish ICE. End all deportation and detention. Extend U.S. asylum access to all comers so they can stay and disappear. Grant citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants. Free healthcare to all. Stop the wall.
The van Spronsens of a border security abolitionist movement burgeoning among progressives at the time were pushing an extreme agenda driven by an ideology unchained from the Democratic Party basement to dismantle immigration enforcement as cruel and inhumane, a violation of human rights like Jim Crow laws and slavery.
They demanded the dismantling of ICE “concentration camps” full of detained latter-day Jews who this time were illegal-immigrant brown people, an end to deportation “death flights” home, the dismantling of ICE’s Nazi jack-booted brown shirts, abolition of laws deterring illegal immigration, and a southern border opened wide to anyone in the world who might feel like crossing it as an inalienable civil right.
Yes on “Abolish ICE” — and Immigration Law Enforcement with It
Harris went full throttle with the narrative that ICE agents she may one day lead were indeed the racist thugs everyone was saying they were.
“Certain communities saw ICE as comparable to the Ku Klux Klan for 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,” Harris accused during a Senate confirmation hearing of Trump’s nominee to lead ICE, Ronald Vitiello.
Then-Sen. Harris responded on MSNBC in 2019 to a question about abolishing ICE that the United States should “probably think about starting from scratch” on enforcing immigration laws, while a spokesperson for Harris said the senator was weighing “a complete overhaul of the agency, mission, culture, operations”.
None of this could be said to be opportunistic at the time, either. In 2015, while serving as California’s Attorney General, Harris told the CBS affiliate in Los Angeles that “An undocumented immigrant is not a criminal. I know what a criminal looks like who’s committing a crime. An undocumented immigrant is not a criminal.”
In fact, illegally crossing the southern border is a federal misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in prison for a first offense and a felony on subsequent violations.
She was one of the candidates who raised a hand at another debate when asked if she supported decriminalizing illegal crossings and when asked if she would give free healthcare to illegal immigrants.
In a 2019 interview with National Public Radio, candidate Harris expressed a willingness as president to declare all illegal border-crossers refugees based on unconfirmable claims of political violence, even if that meant ignoring the law, despite well-known reporting that many let in on such claims disappear into the nation’s illegal immigrant population:
I disagree with any policy that would turn America’s back on people who are fleeing harm. I frankly believe that it is contrary to everything that we have symbolically and actually said we stand for. And so, I would not enforce a law that would reject people and turn them away without giving them a fair and due process to determine if we should give them asylum and refuge. (Emphasis added.)
Harris’ presidential campaign website took a page from Antifa and Black Lives Matter ideology handbooks about dismantling detention and deportation infrastructure, declaring her belief that “[W]e must fundamentally overhaul our immigration enforcement policies and practices — they are cruel and out of control.” She promised to “increase oversight” of agencies like the U.S. Border Patrol were she to be elected.
Expect claims from Harris supporters that, well, this was a primary campaign intended to appeal to the party base and she didn’t really mean any of it.
That’s not believable if Wall Street Journal reporting this week is accurate. People who have worked with Harris over the years told the Journal she only takes up a policy idea after “detailed deliberations … and has been reluctant to always endorse immediate, sweeping policy changes” before achieving full understanding.
“She really wants to understand what the data and evidence is to support a potential course of action,” Jill Habig, who worked for Harris in different roles over the years, is quoted saying. “She really wants to understand not just the idea in theory, but how it’s actually going to work in practice.”
Toning Down in High Office in Favor of Denialism and Gaslighting
Harris went on the down-low about her policy views after becoming vice president, but repeatedly denied a mass migration crisis was underway at the southern border, refusing to visit there, and, when she finally did under pressure, staying indoors in controlled environments with the television cameras.
When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sent some illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard to make a political point in September 2022, Harris was quoted insisting the administration’s policies had “closed” the border when, in fact, hundreds of thousands had just crossed.
Local TV quoted one of the Martha’s Vineyard immigrants refuting the vice president’s absurd claim. “It’s open, not closed. The border is open,” the gentleman responded in English when asked about Harris’ claim that it was closed. “Everybody believes the border is open. It’s open because … we entered! We come in. Free. No problem.”
As vice president, Harris has regularly blamed “root causes” and “climate change” for the vast influx that began right after she and Biden took office and implemented an extreme vision straight from the burning streets of blue cities. Immigration was all so very “complex”, Harris explained during a state visit to Central America to get the strategy up and running.
During an April 2021 roundtable discussion Harris said:
We are looking at extensive storm damage because of extreme climate. We’re looking at drought in an area in a region where agriculture is one of the most traditionally important bases for their economy. We’re looking at what’s happening in terms of food scarcity as a result of that and in fact, incredible food insecurity, which we used to call hunger, food insecurity.
Whatever the Democratic Party nominee might float about her plans for border security over the next four months, Americans concerned about what she and Biden have done at the border should know that, in her case, past definitely is prologue.
President Trump’s Department of Homeland Security is marking what officials are calling a landmark moment in U.S. immigration enforcement, announcing Wednesday that more than 2.5 million illegal aliens have now left the country since Trump returned to the Oval Office in January. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said the surge reflects a sweeping, sustained crackdown driven by Immigration and Customs Enforcement teams that — according to internal tallies — have already removed more than 605,000 illegal aliens, most of whom were facing criminal charges or carrying prior convictions. Nearly two million more have opted to self-deport, a wave Noem attributes to stepped-up enforcement and the administration’s aggressive public messaging. She again urged those still in the country illegally to use the government’s CBP Home app, which offers a free one-way flight and a $1,000 stipend to expedite departure.
Senior DHS officials say arrests have climbed as well, with almost 600,000 illegal aliens taken into custody since January 20. “Illegal aliens are hearing our message to leave now,” DHS official McLaughlin said this week. “They know if they don’t, we will find them, we will arrest them, and they will never return.”
The administration argues the impact is being felt far beyond immigration courts and detention facilities, pointing to the U.S. housing market as one of the clearest signs of change. For six straight months, DHS says not a single illegal alien has been released into the interior from the southern border — a dramatic shift after years of mass inflows under President Biden. That decline, they say, is finally filtering into rent and home-price data after years of punishing increases.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner said Americans have now seen four consecutive months of rent decreases — the first sustained drop in years — as fewer illegal aliens compete for housing. Vice President JD Vance emphasized the connection even more bluntly: “The connection between illegal immigration and skyrocketing housing costs is as clear as day. We are proud to be moving in the right direction. Still so much to do.”
Research abroad and at home backs up the administration’s argument. Economists in Denmark released findings earlier this year showing that a one-percentage-point rise in local immigration over a five-year period drove private rental prices up roughly 6 percent and home prices up about 11 percent. The Center for Immigration Studies presented similar data to Congress last year, with researcher Steven Camarota testifying that a 5-percentage-point increase in a metro area’s recent-immigrant share was tied to a 12-percent rise in rent for U.S.-born households.
As DHS leaders frame it, Trump’s second-term enforcement machine is reshaping both border policy and household budgets — an approach they say is finally delivering relief to Americans who spent years squeezed by soaring housing costs and unchecked migration.
illegal immigration
EXCLUSIVE: Canadian groups, First Nation police support stronger border security
First Nation police chiefs join Texas Department of Public Safety marine units to patrol the Rio Grande River in Hidalgo County, Texas. L-R: Dwayne Zacharie, President of the First Nations Chiefs of Police Association, Ranatiiostha Swamp, Chief of Police of the Akwesasne Mohawk Territory, Brooks County Sheriff Benny Martinez, Jamie Tronnes, Center for North American Prosperity and Security, Goliad County Sheriff Roy Boyd. Photo: Bethany Blankley for The Center Square
From The Center Square
By
Despite Canadian officials arguing that the “Canada-U.S. border is the best-managed and most secure border in the world,” some Canadian groups and First Nation tribal police chiefs disagree.
This week, First Nation representatives traveled to Texas for the first time in U.S.-Canadian history to find ways to implement stronger border security measures at the U.S.-Canada border, including joining an Operation Lone Start Task Force, The Center Square exclusively reported.
Part of the problem is getting law enforcement, elected officials and the general public to understand the reality that Mexican cartels and transnational criminal organizations are operating in Canada; another stems from Trudeau administration visa policies, they argue.
When it comes to public perception, “If you tell Canadians we have a cartel problem, they’ll laugh at you. They don’t believe it. If you tell them we have a gang problem, they will absolutely agree with you 100%. They don’t think that gangs and cartels are the same thing. They don’t see the Hells Angels as equal to the Sinaloa Cartel because” the biker gang is visible, wearing vests out on the streets and cartel operatives aren’t, Jamie Tronnes, executive director of the Center of North American Prosperity and Security, told The Center Square in an exclusive interview.
The center is a US-based project of the MacDonald-Laurier Institute, the largest think tank in Canada. Tronnes previously served as a special assistant to the cabinet minister responsible for immigration and has a background in counterterrorism. She joined First Nation police chiefs to meet with Texas law enforcement and officials this week.
Another Canadian group, Future Borders Coalition, argues, “Canada has become a critical hub for transnational organized crime, with networks operating through its ports, banks, and border communities.” The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Mexican cartels control the fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine business in Canada, partnering with local gangs like the Hells Angels and Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-linked actors, who launder profits through casinos, real estate, and shell companies in Vancouver and Toronto, Ammon Blair, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and others said at a coalition event prior to First Nation police chiefs and Tronnes coming to Texas.
“The ’Ndrangheta (Italian Mafia) maintains powerful laundering and import operations in Ontario and Quebec, while MS-13 and similar Central American gangs facilitate human smuggling and enforcement. Financial networks tied to Hezbollah and other Middle Eastern groups support laundering and logistics for these criminal alliances,” the coalition reports.
“Together, they form interconnected, technology-driven enterprises that exploit global shipping, cryptocurrency, and AI-enabled communications to traffic whatever yields profit – narcotics, weapons, tobacco, or people. Taking advantage of Canada’s lenient disclosure laws, fragmented jurisdictions, and weak cross-border coordination, these groups have embedded themselves within legitimate sectors, turning Canada into both a transit corridor and safe haven for organized crime,” the coalition reports.
Some First Nation reservations impacted by transnational crime straddle the U.S.-Canada border. One is the Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation, located in Ontario, Quebec, and in two upstate New York counties, where human smuggling and transnational crime is occurring, The Center Square reported. Another is the Tsawwassen First Nation (TWA) Reservation, located in a coastal region south of Vancouver in British Columbia stretching to Point Roberts in Washington state, which operates a ferry along a major smuggling corridor.
Some First Nation reservations like the TWA are suffering from CCP organized crime, Tronnes said. Coastal residents observe smugglers crossing their back yards, going through the reserve; along Canada’s western border, “a lot of fentanyl is being sent out to Asia but it’s also being made in Canada,” Tronnes said.
Transnational criminal activity went largely unchecked under the Trudeau government, during which “border security, national security and national defense were not primary concerns,” Tronnes told The Center Square. “It’s not to say they weren’t concerns, but they weren’t top of mind concerns. The Trudeau government preferred to focus on things like climate change, international human rights issues, a feminist foreign policy type of situation where they were looking more at virtue signaling rather than securing the country.”
Under the Trudeau administration, the greatest number of illegal border crossers, including Canadians, and the greatest number of known, suspected terrorists (KSTs) were reported at the U.S.-Canada border in U.S. history, The Center Square first reported. They include an Iranian with terrorist ties living in Canada and a Canadian woman who tried to poison President Donald Trump, The Center Square reported.
“Had it been a priority for the government to really crack down and provide resources for national security,” federal, provincial and First Nation law enforcement would be better equipped, funded and staffed, Tronnes said. “They would have better ways to understand what’s really happening at the border.”
In February, President Donald Trump for the first time in U.S. history declared a national emergency at the northern border and ordered U.S. military intervention. Months later, his administration acknowledged the majority of fentanyl and KSTs were coming from Canada, The Center Square reported.
Under a new government and in response to pressure from Trump, Canada proposed a $1.3 billion border plan. However, more is needed, the groups argue, including modernizing border technology and an analytics infrastructure, reforming disclosure and privacy rules to enable intelligence sharing, and recognizing and fully funding First Nation police, designating them as essential services and essential to border security.
“National security doesn’t exist without First Nation policing at the border,” Dwayne Zacharie, First Nations Chiefs of Police president, told The Center Square.
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