Vice President Kamala Harris once sponsored legislation to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) ability to detain illegal aliens. The plan would have had more than 20,000 illegal aliens released from the agency’s custody into the United States.
In 2018, Harris joined Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) in sponsoring the Detention Oversight Not Expansion (DONE) Act — a plan to dramatically reshape immigration detention and limit the power Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) currently has to detain illegal aliens.
“ICE’s indiscriminate approach to immigration enforcement continues to sow fear and anxiety in communities across the nation and strict oversight is long overdue,” Harris said in a statement at the time:
It is unconscionable to subject detainees to inhumane conditions that include cases of unchecked sexual abuse, outright medical negligence, lack of access to counsel, and in some cases, even death. It’s time to end the expansion of these facilities that divert these resources to address true public safety threats.
[Emphasis added]
Among the most radical elements, Harris’s DONE Act would have banned ICE from expanding immigration detention, regardless of illegal immigration levels.
“Kamala Harris has been tight-lipped about her plans to enforce federal immigration laws, but the name of one of this proposal, the DONE Act, is telling,” RJ Hauman, president of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE), told Breitbart News. “Interior enforcement would in fact be done and nullified if she takes office.”
Another piece of Harris’s plan would require DHS to cut detention of illegal aliens by 50 percent.
At the time, Congress funded 42,000 ICE detention beds. Under Harris’s plan, about 21,000 illegal aliens would have to be transferred out of custody and released into the U.S. interior with some federal monitoring.
Hauman told Breitbart News that Harris’s plan would upend immigration detention.
“Her DONE Act would cut detention space as criminal aliens continue to roam free, ensure detention is no longer mandatory for illegal aliens, and actually prohibit the detention of illegal aliens deemed ‘vulnerable’ by the DHS secretary — a rubber stamp one of her nominees is sure to use,” Hauman said.
Harris’s plan would have similarly reopened former President Barack Obama’s Family Case Management Program which funneled social services like pro-bono legal assistance, medical care, public school enrollment, public transportation, and housing to migrants released into the U.S. interior.
While Harris has yet to mention her sponsoring the DONE Act while on the campaign trail this election cycle, her record in the Senate and prior presidential campaign included fierce opposition to detaining illegal aliens.
In 2019, while running in the Democrat presidential primary, Harris told a crowd in Iowa City, Iowa, that she would close immigration detention facilities operated by private contractors who work with DHS.
“When you become president, would you be committing to close the immigration detention centers?” a voter asked Harris, to which she responded, “Absolutely, on day one — on day one.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has estimated that about 9-in-10 illegal aliens held in DHS custody are housed in privately owned detention facilities. That statistic indicates that Harris’s prior commitment would see about 90 percent of illegal aliens currently held in DHS custody released.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
