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Republicans have falsely labeled Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s “border czar” in their attempt to blame her for the number of migrant crossings—which is decreasing. It’s a label Donald Trump used in last week’s debate, in between his multiple hateful, lie-filled rants about immigrants.
In reality, Harris’ role was mostly limited to addressing the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras through task forces focused on corruption and smuggling, and by working with the private sector to expand economic opportunities. That increased collaboration is generally viewed favorably by immigration advocates—but Harris’ focus on deterrence-based policies at the border has been criticized. As the Democratic nominee, she has come out in favor of the bipartisan immigration bill championed by Joe Biden, which would, among other things, allow the Department of Homeland Security to suspend most access to asylum outside of ports of entry when border encounters reach a certain level.
I think the hope is that overall, she’ll be taking a much more humanistic approach to immigration.
Adriel D. Orozco is a senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, which works to improve the immigration system. He believes that cutting off access to asylum based on the number of migrant encounters is the wrong approach to solving the problems of a strained and under-resourced system. Orozco does support the Biden administration’s use of parole to allow people to stay in the United States while they seek residency—he hopes to see Harris continue the practice. I spoke with him about Harris’ approach to tackling immigration challenges as a senator and as vice president, and what advocates hope to see from her administration if she becomes the 47th president.
Republicans have falsely billed Harris as Biden’s “border czar.” What do you think is the basis?
I think that there [were] some inaccurate representations of her work from the beginning: A lot of the headlines that were coming out at the time were focused on her addressing immigration generally, and White House officials said that she would oversee a whole government approach to dealing with immigration. There was a lot of confusion.
What was Harris’ actual role in the Biden administration when it came to immigration policy?
President Biden announced at a press conference that Vice President Harris would take on a diplomatic campaign to address the root causes [of migration] from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The idea was to think about why folks were leaving that region. She was tasked with increasing public and private sector investment in the area to strengthen the economies. She was also trying to figure out ways to address corruption within the government and address some of the smuggling and human trafficking networks.
But from the beginning, it was meant to be a long-term strategy. It wasn’t meant for her to be focused on the border policy. That was always under the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas.
What were the specific goals of the “Root Causes Strategy”?
Really thinking about [the] problems that are occurring in these Northern Triangle countries that are impacting people’s livelihoods and pressuring them to leave the region. She wanted to increase investment, particularly from the private sector, but also investment from other entities like the UN and USAID. Part of it was trying to address some of the networks that were being established around drug trafficking, human trafficking, [and] human smuggling, that were also leading to increased migration levels in the region.
Did the strategy represent a departure from that of previous administrations?
It depends on which administration, but there’s always been an attempt to try to provide investments in the region to support local economies. It was a pretty clear departure from the Trump administration, which was primarily trying to bolster the enforcement mechanisms within these countries to stop migration. So this was a departure in the sense that it was trying to look more broadly, not just from an enforcement and deterrence lens, but also about why people [are] coming.
Has it been successful?
That’s a little bit difficult to pinpoint. There are things that one can point to to say that it was successful. Vice President Harris and the Biden-Harris administration have pointed out that they secured more than $5 billion in private-sector investment in the region. They established a task force to try to create more collaboration between Mexico and these Northern Triangle countries to try to address smuggling and human trafficking. Generally speaking, there are lower numbers of migrants coming from that region, but there are many other reasons why that could be, particularly Mexico preventing them from getting to the US-Mexico border [and] some changes in El Salvador around security issues. So it’s hard to say, but it is important to create more regional cooperation. You can’t really just stop it border by border.
She tries to take a humanistic lens to migration, considering her background as a child of migrants, but she’s also a prosecutor.
What was Harris like in the Senate regarding immigration policy?
She is probably most well known for her ability to almost cross-examine Trump administration officials, particularly around the “zero-tolerance” policy that led to the separation of families at the border. More than 3,000 children were separated from their parents. In terms of policy, she was a vocal proponent of the DACA program and criticized the Trump administration when it rescinded the program. She also advocated for pathways for citizenship and was willing to take the administration head-on when she saw that [it] was doing real harm to immigrant communities.
What would your organization like to see from a Harris administration if she wins?
We would like to see a shift away [from] primarily relying on deterrence and enforcement policy at the border. We think immigration needs to be thought about more holistically. Unfortunately, we’ve seen, from the Biden-Harris administration, a rightward shift in its policy proposals. Particularly the Senate bipartisan bill that both Biden and Harris supported trying to cut off access to asylum as a means to deter migrants. And we think that that’s the wrong approach.
From what I’ve read and seen from Vice President Harris, I think she tries to take a balanced approach. She tries to take a humanistic lens to migration, considering her background as a child of migrants, but she’s also a prosecutor. She also sees the importance of enforcing the law and protecting vulnerable communities, so we think that there’s a prime opportunity for her to become much more of a vocal supporter of increasing pathways for individuals, so that they don’t have to make the treacherous journey to the United States border.
It was difficult to see that the bipartisan Senate bill was largely focused on trying to shut off access to asylum at the border. [We need] the proper balance of saying we need to have security at the border, but also that the folks who have been in the United States for a long time deserve a dignified process to becoming citizens.
What changes would you like to see to the asylum system in the United States?
The Senate border bill wasn’t all bad. Our organization thinks that there were some components that made sense. One was to make the asylum process non-adversarial. So, right now, the overwhelming majority of migrants are unable to get an attorney to represent them in immigration court proceedings, but the government is always represented by their government attorney. So if you’re able to have trained asylum officers, where it’s non-adversarial, you give people more of an opportunity to present their stories, and if they qualify to be in the United States, they can stay.
One of our concerns with heavy-handed deterrence-based policies is that a lot of people are being sent back into harm’s way, when internationally, we have obligations to protect people from being placed back in harm’s way. The unfortunate thing for the Biden-Harris administration is that they have not been able to get the resources they need to address the larger [number] of individuals who had been presenting at the border.
What we’ve seen from her previous work is that she tries to be pragmatic.
And so they have been placed in an impossible situation by Congress, particularly conservatives who decided that they did not want to fund the systems that exist now. The system is broken in a myriad of ways, not just the laws that exist but also the fact that our Congress is unwilling to actually fund the laws that exist.
When it comes to undocumented people already living in the United States, what do you think the Harris administration should do?
We do believe that the pathway to citizenship for immigrants who have been in the United States for a long time should be something she advocates for. I think it’s difficult to see, without a fundamental change in the makeup of Congress, how she would be able to actually get that passed. A lot of the tools that the Biden administration has been using, a Harris administration can use, [like] temporary protected status as a means to protect more populations in the United States.
Has Harris signaled any potential changes from the Biden administration on immigration policy?
We have heard from her speeches that she is supporting the bipartisan border bill and that she would advocate for it if she is able to win. Generally, she has said that she supports a pathway to citizenship. But we haven’t really received specifics on other policies. I do think that given her involvement with the Biden administration, she would take a similar approach around parole and TPS [Temporary Protected Status].
How do you view Harris’ recent move towards a more aggressive approach to campaigning on immigration?
I think it is good to see her out there taking a stronger approach to rhetoric and really trying to shape the narrative. Obviously, she has a strong position, given Donald Trump’s involvement in making sure that the bipartisan bill didn’t move through Congress, but she is adopting the language of Republicans around crime and protection.
It fits with her role as a prosecutor—so part of it is politics, trying to meet folks who are concerned about the border and security, given the years of fear-mongering around that issue. I think what we’ve seen from her previous work is [that] she tries to be pragmatic. I’m sure that she’s trying to think about how you have rules in place while still honoring the folks who have been here for long periods of time without authorization.
It is a little bit concerning that the Democratic Party has adopted that language, but I think the hope is that overall, she’ll be taking a much more humanistic approach to immigration. And her opponent, his campaign’s rhetoric around immigration is just horrific—trying to use the military and the National Guard to round up migrants. So Vice President Harris is looking like the reasonable person in the room, even though, if [you] compare her to four years ago, she would probably be very much to the right in that rhetoric.
