Ronald Vitiello endured an hour of statements and questions from senators during his 2018 hearing to become the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Then Sen. Kamala Harris swooped into the room, mispronounced his name and demanded to know why he once compared Democrats to the Ku Klux Klan. That, she said, was a more apt comparison for the men and women at ICE, the federal agency that handles deportations.
“Are you aware that there’s a perception that ICE is administering its power in a way that is causing fear and intimidation, particularly among immigrants and specifically immigrants coming from Mexico and Central America?” the California Democrat challenged Mr. Vitiello, who was President Trump’s nominee to run ICE.
He vehemently resisted the ICE-KKK comparison. Nevertheless, she persisted.
“Sir, how can you be the head of an agency and be unaware of how your agency is perceived by certain communities?” she said.
She finished her questions and left the room, Mr. Vitiello recalled in an interview with The Washington Times this month.
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“It was a cheap shot, it was without merit, it was a headline grab. That’s what she was hoping for,” he said. “The men and women that work the front line at ICE don’t deserve that characterization by a so-called leader of government.”
Ms. Harris is now the likely Democratic presidential candidate, and her record on immigration and border security is shaping up as a potential liability.
Republicans deride her as a failed “border czar.” They point to President Biden’s designation of her in early 2021 as the administration’s lead in stemming the flow of people coming into the U.S. illegally — particularly from Central American nations.
Democrats say that’s not fair.
They say Mr. Biden never gave her charge over the border and the task belongs to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Regardless, the Central American portfolio she was given has turned out well. The number of illegal immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras has dropped by 70% since March 2021.
“While a lot of work remains, Vice President Harris got results,” said Rep. Nanette Barragan, California Democrat and chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
She said Ms. Harris has helped attract billions of dollars in investment and hundreds of millions of dollars in direct assistance for Central American nations.
Ms. Harris sowed confusion over her role at the border when she paid a visit in June 2021. She toured a processing center where illegal immigrants are held after their arrest, and she visited an official border crossing.
She said she met with children who arrived at the border without parents, one just 9 years old, and they and other migrants deserved compassion after four years of President Trump.
“Our administration, it is important to be clear, is working to build a fair and a functional, humane immigration system,” the vice president said. “We feel very strongly about that.”
She did, however, toe the administration’s line in urging would-be illegal immigrants not to make the journey.
They didn’t listen.
The Congressional Budget Office this month calculated that the Biden border surge will add more than 8 million unauthorized migrants to the U.S. population through 2026.
Among those who have arrived at the border are a record number of subjects on the terrorist watchlist and a record number of vulnerable children traveling unaccompanied by parents.
The Homeland Security Department has also detected record amounts of fentanyl pouring across the border.
The Biden team says it has turned the corner after the president adopted a get-tough stance earlier this year, recruiting Mexico to do more to block migrants from reaching the U.S. boundary and imposing a border shutdown that allows faster deportations for some of those who make it over the line.
The White House says the Border Patrol now has to make fewer daily arrests than it did in the final days of the Trump administration.
That, however, doesn’t account for the nearly 2,500 unauthorized migrants allowed in daily through legal ports of entry.
Administration officials say those aren’t as troubling because they are prescheduling their arrivals and don’t have to be caught by the Border Patrol. Critics say they are still unauthorized migrants who have no right to status in the U.S., will have to be deported at some point, and until then put a strain on government services.
Ms. Harris, as Democrats’ fresh face replacing the 81-year-old Mr. Biden, is enjoying a remarkable honeymoon with her party and with much of the press.
News outlets that just a few years ago labeled her the border czar have rushed to say otherwise and to accuse Republicans of overselling her role in the illegal immigration chaos.
What remains is a gaping hole in knowledge about what Ms. Harris would mean for immigration.
In her failed 2020 run for the Democratic presidential nomination, she ran to Mr. Biden’s left. Asked about calls to abolish ICE, she said she would “think about starting from scratch.” She has also repeatedly said crossing the border illegally should not be a crime.
Mark Morgan, who was Border Patrol chief in the Obama administration and acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection in the Trump administration, said he expects she would tilt further to the left than even Mr. Biden has.
“She’s not just going to continue Biden’s policies; she’s going to make them worse,” Mr. Morgan told The Times.
He said she has a particular problem with the workforce she would have to rely on to enforce immigration laws, and it’s not just ICE and the KKK remark.
Three years later, when Ms. Harris was the sitting vice president charged by Mr. Biden with a wave of illegal immigrants cresting at the border, tens of thousands of Haitian migrants stormed across the Rio Grande at Del Rio, Texas, creating a beachhead encampment on U.S. soil.
Border Patrol agents rushed to respond, including the horse patrol unit.
Images of mounted agents corralling migrants in the river, with the horse reins swirling in the air, went viral. Ms. Harris again saw the worst in the government workers, comparing them to slave masters whipping slaves.
“Human beings should not be treated that way,” Ms. Harris told “The View.”
“It also invoked images of some of the worst moments of our history, where that kind of behavior has been used against the Indigenous people of our country, it has been used against African Americans during times of slavery,” she said.
A year later, the government released a report saying nobody was whipped or hit, though investigators did fault one agent for grabbing the shirt of a migrant and dinged several agents for using “derogatory” language about Haiti.
“It is unconscionable, it is reckless, and it is irresponsible to use those words against the men and women of these agencies. It’s the very definition of hate,” Mr. Morgan said.
The Harris campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment for this report.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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