Harris shifts key positions on border, illegal immigration as campaign promises 'pragmatic' approach

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Kamala Harris is ‘not serious’ about border security: Chris Clem

Retired Border Patrol chief Chris Clem slams Vice President Kamala Harris for policy ‘flip-flopping’ after the Democratic presidential candidate promised harsher border policies.

The Harris campaign on Thursday confirmed to Fox News that Vice President Kamala Harris has changed her positions on a number of immigration and border-security policies, including decriminalizing illegal crossings and closing immigration detention centers.

"While Donald Trump is wedded to the extreme ideas in his Project 2025 agenda, Vice President Harris believes real leadership means bringing all sides together to build consensus," spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said in a statement. "It is that approach that made it possible for the Biden-Harris administration to achieve bipartisan breakthroughs on everything from infrastructure to gun violence prevention. As President, she will take that same pragmatic approach, focusing on common-sense solutions for the sake of progress."

Harris has faced scrutiny for her past positions on border security as a California senator and a 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidate. A Harris campaign adviser told Fox that her positions have been "shaped by three years of effective governance as part of the Biden-Harris administration."

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Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz disembark from their campaign bus in Savannah, Georgia, on Wednesday as they travel across Georgia for a two-day campaign bus tour. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Harris previously expressed support for decriminalizing illegal crossings at the border during the 2020 presidential primaries, arguing they should be a civil offense instead. 

"An undocumented immigrant is not a criminal," she said in 2017.

This week, a campaign spokesman told Fox that "the Vice President's position is the same as the administration's — unauthorized border crossings are illegal." 

On Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention, Harris had previously promised as a presidential candidate in 2019 to shut down immigration detention centers on "day one." In other remarks, she had also talked about ICE potentially starting "from scratch."

"I think there’s no question that we’ve got to critically re-examine ICE and its role and the way that it is being administered and the work it is doing," Harris told MSNBC in 2018. "And we need to probably think about starting from scratch."

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On Thursday, the campaign said her position is the same as the administration’s, which is "continuing to ensure sufficient resources to enforce our laws and prioritize detention and removal for individuals who pose threats to public safety and national security, as well as ensure compliance with immigration proceedings and decisions, including removal."

More broadly, Harris has repeatedly backed the bipartisan Senate package that emerged from negotiations in the chamber earlier this year, which increases funding for the border, including ICE bed space, and a mechanism to limit asylum entries into the U.S.

Migrants walk along the highway through Suchiate, Chiapas state in southern Mexico, on July 21 during their journey north toward the U.S. border. (AP Photo/Edgar H. Clemente)

In June, President Biden signed an executive order that limited asylum at the border and has led to a sharp decrease in crossings after three years of a historic crisis. The administration has said the low numbers come directly because of that order, and has renewed calls for the package to be passed by the Senate — blaming former President Trump for its failure to pass.

"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," spokesperson Kevin Munoz said in a statement. 

CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE BORDER SECURITY CRISIS

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"Like everything with Donald Trump, it’s never been about helping the country, it's only about helping himself. There’s only one candidate in this race who will fight for bipartisan solutions to strengthen border security, and that’s Vice President Harris," he said.

The Trump campaign has pushed back against narratives in the media suggesting that Harris has turned into a moderate on the issue, attacking her positions this week. In response to Fox’s reporting, the Trump campaign said that Harris is "ON TAPE spanning a decade spewing her dangerously liberal positions on every one of these issues."

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"She’s not changing, she’s just lying," the campaign said.