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 among the American proper’s high fascinations and speaking factors: gender-affirming surgical procedures, Joe Biden’s psychological acuity, the prospect of struggle with Iran. And — in fact — she obtained robust questions on immigration coverage and the southern border.
It was in answering these questions that Harris demonstrated how a lot the Democratic Get together is shifting proper — towards the ideological heart on immigration — beneath 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 proper. 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, at the same time as he pitches invoking archaic legal guidelines to spherical up and deport tens of millions of individuals dwelling in the US.
As a substitute, 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 receive public medical insurance beneath a common plan?
“Hear, that was 5 years in the past, and I’m very clear that I’ll comply with the regulation. I’ve made that assertion time and again,” Harris responded.
In that case, Baier adopted up, why did she choose a operating mate, Gov. Tim Walz, who signed a few of those self same proposals into state regulation in Minnesota?
Harris paused earlier than saying that her ticket is “very clear that we should help and implement federal regulation 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 12 months that Trump helped tank. She did the identical when requested if she regretted the Biden administration’s repeal of Trump-era govt orders proscribing immigration — citing a invoice the White Home proposed that she stated would’ve “mounted our immigration system.” However she omitted that it additionally would have supplied a pathway to citizenship for sure undocumented immigrants already dwelling within the US.
This all continues a pattern for Harris. Simply final week, at a city corridor hosted by the Spanish-language media community Univision, Harris was twice offered with alternatives to invoke and condemn Trump’s mass deportation plans when chatting with attendees who had household who have been deported or unable to get well being care as a result of they lacked authorized standing. She handed on that likelihood, as a substitute referencing her previous help for Deferred Motion for Childhood Arrivals program recipients earlier than pivoting to speak about reviving the bipartisan border invoice.
And since changing 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 help. These critics are nonetheless biting their tongues — declaring the necessity to unite to win the election and hold a roundly anti-immigrant Trump from controlling the manager department — however that truce will solely maintain so far as November 5.