Kamala Harris Claims ‘an Undocumented Immigrant Is Not a Criminal’

Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ likely 2024 presidential nominee, has repeatedly declared that “an undocumented immigrant is not a criminal.”

The Republican National Committee spotlighted the multiple statements that Harris has made since she was a political candidate in California:

“What she’s ultimately saying is that illegal immigration is not a crime … [but] the statute says it is a crime, so she’s wrong,” responded Jon Feere, a former top official in President Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

The statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1325, says:

Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under Title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under Title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.

Illegal migrants also violate many non-immigration laws, said Feere. “All sorts of crimes are being committed by your average, non-violent, working illegal alien …. Your average ‘undocumented worker’ is engaged in identity theft, social security fraud, tax evasion, and a whole host of crimes that create real victims,” he said.

An undocumented worker “is a lawbreaker, plain and simple,” Feere responded.

Harris is a lawyer and may be arguing that an illegal immigrant is not a criminal until they have been convicted of a crime.

“What does it mean to be a criminal?” asked Feere. “Is the person who holds up the bank at gunpoint, who steals a bunch of money, and runs out the door, a criminal?”

But the dictionary definition of “criminal” covers both people who have committed a crime, and those who have been convicted of committing a crime.

Feere continued:

Are [illegal migrants] lawbreakers or are they not? The answer is yes, and the Executive Branch’s job is to hold them accountable for breaking laws.

She’s communicating that she chooses not to do the [law enforcement] job of the Executive Branch, which makes me wonder, why should she be the in Executive Branch in the first place? She’s implying that she will not enforce the laws that the American people put on the books through their elected representatives, via this thing we call our democracy.

It means that she has abandoned a huge section of federal law, at which point we really have to wonder whether our form of government is capable of withstanding such a radical individual.

The federal government is already refusing to enforce Congress’s border laws, Feere said:

We have the secretary of [the Department of Homeland Security] announcing that he will not enforce certain areas of law. We have a President who is choosing to allow most [border] law breaking to go unchecked, and the result is a massive increase in illegal immigration like we’ve never seen before in human history.

Since 2021, President Joe Biden’s staff have welcomed roughly 10 million legal and illegal migrants. The inflow adds up to roughly one migrant for every American birth.

That vast population hurts ordinary Americans by dragging down wages, diverting business investment from workplace productivity, and pushing up both housing prices and mortgage rates.

“The entire purpose of the presidency is to execute federal laws” passed by Congress, said Feere. “If she’s announcing now that she has no intention to do that, this obviously isn’t the right job for her.”