Vice President Kamala Harris once backed a nationwide sanctuary policy that would have prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from issuing detainers to take custody of illegal aliens arrested in local communities, effectively shielding them from deportation.
CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski published details of an unearthed American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) questionnaire that Harris filled out in 2019 when she was running for the Democrat nomination for president.
In the questionnaire, Harris vowed to end ICE’s ability to issue detainers on illegal aliens whom local police departments had arrested. Detainers, experts have long said, are one of the most important enforcement tools that ensure illegal aliens can be swiftly turned over to ICE agents after being taken into police custody.
Sanctuary jurisdictions — such as San Francisco, California, where Harris served as district attorney — ban local law enforcement agencies from honoring ICE detainers — shielding illegal aliens in custody from federal immigration law.
“As president, I will focus enforcement on increasing public safety, not tearing apart immigrant families,” Harris wrote in the ACLU questionnaire. “This includes requiring ICE to obtain a warrant where probable cause exists as to end the use of detainers.”
From Fiscal Year 2021 through Fiscal Year 2023, President Joe Biden and Harris’s administration issued ICE detainers on more than 270,000 illegal aliens whom local police had arrested.
The Biden-Harris administration issued far fewer ICE detainers than former President Donald Trump did when he was in office. From Fiscal Year 2017 through Fiscal Year 2020, the Trump administration issued detainers on more than 607,000 illegal aliens whom local police had arrested.
While serving as California attorney general, Harris defended the state’s sanctuary policy. In 2015, she went as far as to threaten local police departments with lawsuits if they complied with ICE detainers.
Similarly, Harris wrote in the ACLU questionnaire that “our immigration detention system is out of control” and suggested that ICE detention facilities be shuttered.
“I believe we must end the unfair incarceration of thousands of individuals, families, and children. I was one of the first Senators after President Trump was elected to advocate for a decrease in funding to ICE,” Harris wrote, noting her work in 2017 to slash funding for ICE agents.
Harris, in the ACLU questionnaire, also proudly touted co-sponsoring the DONE Act in 2018 with Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), which would have cut the number of ICE detention beds by 50 percent.
As Breitbart News reported in August, Harris has a long record of advocating for shutting most of ICE’s detention facilities that hold some of the most violent criminal illegal aliens until they are deported from the United States.
In 2019, Harris told a crowd in Iowa City, Iowa, that she would close immigration detention facilities operated by private contractors who work with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
“On day one, we’ll shut them down,” Harris said.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
