Dozens of left-wing immigration groups are plotting to push Vice President Kamala Harris further to the left should she win the White House. The groups say they "trust Harris to make the right decisions" and ditch her "MAGA" border policies if elected, Axios reported.
The groups, which are temporarily uniting with Harris as they work to beat former president Donald Trump, plan to pressure her to ditch the recent bipartisan border security bill she promised to sign if elected, according to Axios. The groups referred to that bill as "harmful" and part of a "MAGA anti-immigrant agenda."
"We all know and trust Harris to make the right decisions when she's in office. I don't think this bill will ever come up again, as is," Kerri Talbot, executive director of the Immigration Hub, told Axios. "If you take out the Ukraine aide that was originally part of the compromise, it's just a Republican bill."
California Sen. Alex Padilla (D.), who replaced Harris after she became vice president, said in May that the border bill "contains some of the same tried and failed policies that would actually make the situation worse at the southern border."
Harris, who was President Joe Biden’s point person on immigration, has been largely criticized for her handling of the southern border, as more than eight million illegal immigrants have come into the country under her watch. Harris’s campaign has backpedaled policies she supported when she ran for president in 2020, such as decriminalizing border crossings. Now, Harris has vowed to hire more agents to "secure the border" and to continue construction on Trump’s border wall, which she described as "un-American" in 2018.
Liberal leaders are optimistic that Harris's tough border agenda is just a façade to help her win votes and that she'll regress back to her progressive views if elected, Axios reported.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) has also indicated that Harris will abandon her more moderate policies and revert to her progressive "ideals."
"No, I don’t think she’s abandoning her ideals," he said. "I think she’s trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election."