Immigration advocacy groups have long felt they had an ally in Kamala Harris. That could be a problem for the vice president.
“As president, she will really do the work to make just a humane immigration reform a reality, not just in rhetoric but in real strategic and political advancement,” said Angelica Salas, executive director of CHIRLA. “That’s my hope. That is my expectation too.”
CHIRLA is an immigrant advocacy group based in California, and Salas said they’ve worked with Harris since she was attorney general. Salas is one of an array of advocates who’s excited about the potential of a Harris presidency.
The political moment has changed since Harris’ early political career. The number of migrants coming into the country across the southern border has increased, and the rise is a core part of Republican political campaigns this year. They’ve used it to hammer Democrats, including Harris, who they have repeatedly called the Biden administration’s “border czar” (though that’s not an accurate description of her role). Republicans in Congress moved last week to censure her for her border policies.
Harris has yet to release a firm policy platform following Joe Biden’s announcement that he would step down last week, but it’s clear some advocates have an expectation that she will stand up for their cause. To what degree she does so, and how she decides to thread the needle between immigrant rights and border security, could have significant implications leading up to November.
Some consultants are warning her: Don’t listen to the advocates.
“Politics demands a different moment. Things have changed. That war is lost,” said GOP consultant Mike Madrid, whose work focuses on Latino voters. “Doesn’t mean you can’t go back and get policy done when you’re president. It does mean if you keep going down this path, you are going to lose the election.”
Harris’ past policies on immigration are mixed. She supported a 2008 San Francisco policy that would have reported arrested undocumented juveniles to Immigration and Customs Enforcement but also supported keeping sanctuary status for the city. In the Senate, she came out as a major supporter of the DREAM Act and led opposition to some of Trump’s policies, including his efforts to end DACA. In her 2020 presidential run, she made critical statements about ICE but stopped short of calling for the agency to be razed, as some progressives did at the time.
Many advocates have said they believe Harris truly cares about immigration policy.
“I know her, and she stood with us in the worst moments during the Trump administration,” Salas said.
But she said one of her critiques of Harris and Biden is that “in trying to deal with the critique of the Republican Party, sometimes the administration went to a harsher, right-leaning way.” She was particularly bothered by Biden’s executive action on asylum that limited the number of migrants who could claim protections in certain circumstances.
More compromises are likely to come from Harris with the election on the line. Consultants who spoke with NOTUS said advocates will have to make their peace with that.
“There’s always gonna be that tension when you have people that care deeply about anything, and you can’t deliver 100% of what they want,” said California Democratic consultant Steven Maviglio. “It was a little different when you’re the U.S. senator from California, as opposed to the whole nation.”
Of course, not everyone in the pro-immigrant space expects Harris to come out with a wholly progressive immigration agenda. Some have watched her time in the Biden administration, and it tempered their expectations. Oscar Chacón, executive director of Alianza Americas, pointed to the speech she gave in Guatemala in which she told potential migrants not to come to the U.S.
“She was regarded as a pretty good leader, pretty good senator. Once she becomes president, or vice president, I think that everything changes, because it is no longer up to what Kamala Harris may think or may want to do. It really becomes what the administration and what the Democratic Party as an institution wants to do,” Chacón said. “I think that for her, it’s been really hard.”
“It’s hard to imagine in what ways, based on what we now know about her, in what ways will she be substantively better than Biden?” he continued.
However, while the left might be disappointed by such a campaign, Harris is protected by their more intense opposition to Trump.
“First, you have to get her elected, and then we can talk about what we can do. But to beat up somebody who’s running against an extremist on this issue does not move their needle forward an inch. It sets it back,” Maviglio said. “So join the team.”
Maviglio said that while things might get ugly in private (“There’ll be tension. There’ll be screaming.”), all advocates should know there’s nothing worse for them than another Trump presidency.
“No one wants to be blamed for her losing in a close election,” he said. “After, then you hear, ‘Oh, we got her elected, so therefore she needs to deliver for us.’”
The Harris team seems to know it.
“The only ‘plan’ Donald Trump has to secure our border is ripping mothers from their children and a few xenophobic placards at the Republican National Convention. He tanked the bipartisan border security deal because, for Donald Trump, this has never been about solutions, just running on a problem,” the Harris campaign said when asked for comment.
And Madrid said, in a way, Harris’ relationships with pro-immigrant groups could actually work in her favor. They’ll have a trust in her that they may not have with other candidates.
“They have to trust each other and know each other and understand the political moment, which is, you’re not getting that stuff in this campaign. You’re just not, and the more you advocate, and the more you grinch, and the more you complain about it, the more you’re hurting my objectives,” Madrid said. “And then you end up with Donald Trump.”
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Casey Murray is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.