During a town hall on CNN on Wednesday, 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris stated that the Biden-Harris administration waited years to take the executive action at the border that they did this year because they were working with Congress in the hopes of passing a bill and defended the delay in taking the action by stating, “I think we did the right thing.”
Host Anderson Cooper asked, “[Y]ou talk about the bill that Donald Trump quashed, that was in 2024. You talk about the bill you tried to get passed in 2021, that wasn’t able to get passed. 2022, 2023, there were record border crossings. Your administration took a number — hundreds of executive actions. It didn’t stem the flow. The numbers kept going up. Finally, in 2024, just in June, three weeks before the first presidential debate with Joe Biden, you institute executive actions that have a dramatic impact, really shut down people crossing over. Why didn’t your administration do that in 2022, 2023?”
Harris answered, “First of all, you’re exactly right, Anderson. And, as of today, we have cut the flow of immigration by over half. In fact, the numbers I saw most recently, illegal immigration –.”
Cooper then cut in to ask, “But if it was that easy with that executive action, why not do it in 2022, 2023?”
Harris answered, “Because we were working with Congress and hoping that, actually, we could have a long-term fix to the problem instead of a short-term fix.”
Cooper then asked, “You couldn’t have done one and — both at the same time?”
Harris responded, “Well, here’s the thing, we have to understand that, ultimately, this problem is going to be fixed through congressional action. Congress has the authority and the purse. … Part of the issue is, in order to really fix the problem at the border — I was just at the border, recently, talking with border agents. You know what they talk about? Yes, they are overwhelmed, they’re working around the clock. And the other thing that they talked to me about, we need more judges down there to deal with asylum claims, we need more personnel down there to deal with processing. But, Anderson — and that’s where Congress kicks in, in terms of dedicating the resources to actually fixing the problem. We have dealt with it, such that, to your point, we now, as of today, as of our visit, have lower undocumented immigrants and illegal immigration than Trump when he left office. But we need a permanent solution, and that requires bipartisan work.”
Cooper then asked, “Do you wish you had done that — do you wish you had done those executive orders in 2022, 2023?”
Harris responded, “I think we did the right thing. But the best thing that can happen for the American people is that we have bipartisan work happening, and I pledge to you that I will work across the aisle to fix this longstanding problem. I think the American people are demanding it on both sides of the aisle, and it’s time we actually put the partisan approach to this aside. We know what can work.”
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