As district attorney for San Francisco, Kamala Harris misappropriated over $5 million in federal grants that were intended to combat border crimes, according to a 2010 Department of Justice audit.
Records show that Harris, while serving as chief prosecutor of the sanctuary city from 2004 to 2011, requested millions of dollars from the Department of Justice’s Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative. The program reimburses local prosecutors for handling "illegal immigration and drug and alien smuggling cases" referred to them by federal authorities.
But a DOJ inspector general audit report found that none of the cases that Harris’s office filed for reimbursement were eligible under the program. The city was forced to pay back the improper funding claims.
The report suggests that Harris has struggled to manage border crime issues dating back to the early days of her political career.
Harris, who serves as the point person for Biden’s migrant policies as vice president, has faced criticism from Republicans for failing to slow the surge in illegal immigration and border crime.
"I think she’s been consistent throughout her political career, whether she was D.A., a California attorney general, a senator," said Ira Mehlman, media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. "Her entire record was about not enforcing immigration laws, [and] making sure that the people who violate those laws are not prosecuted or removed in any way."
Jon Feere, a former Immigrations and Customs Enforcement official and investigator at the Center for Immigration Studies, said there has "not been any initiative by Kamala Harris, the border czar, to discourage illegal immigration or stop the fallout from open borders, going back to her time as district attorney."
"She doesn’t see a problem with victimization, and thinks that the policies are more important than any harm to American citizens," he said.
As district attorney, Harris championed San Francisco’s status as a "sanctuary city, a city of refuge," and vowed not to prosecute immigration offenses. But her office still raked in over $5 million in unlawful reimbursements from the federal program intended to address migrant-related crimes.
DOJ auditors said they noticed a "red flag" after Harris’s office requested significantly more reimbursements in 2006 from the program than any other local prosecutor in the United States, "despite being located about 500 miles north of the Southwest Border," according to a 2010 report issued by the DOJ inspector general.
Harris’s office claimed the money was repayment for handling illegal immigrant-linked drug cases that the U.S. Attorney’s office had referred to her agency for prosecution. But the inspector general investigation determined that none of the cases were eligible and they had not been referred to Harris by federal prosecutors.
"[A]ll of the cases for which San Francisco had received SWBPI funds were ineligible for reimbursement," said the audit, which blamed Harris’s staff and an outside contractor hired by her office for the failure. The contractor also worked for other California prosecutors who had filed ineligible claims, although those reimbursements were significantly lower than the amounts requested by Harris’s office.
The investigation found that Harris’s office, instead of submitting individual cases for reimbursement, had "submitted approximately 30 percent of its drug cases" for the funding, even though the "cases were not federally initiated."
The DOJ inspector general referred the results of the audit to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California. No criminal action appears to have been taken against Harris’s office or the contractor she hired.
The funding mishap wasn’t the only mark on Harris’s immigration record while serving as DA. She was also criticized for her "Back on Track" program, which provided job training in lieu of prison time to convicted felons—including those who were in the United States illegally. One "Back on Track" participant, Alexander Izaguirre, robbed and brutally assaulted a woman while in the program in 2009.
Harris and San Francisco’s sanctuary city policies also came under fire in 2008, after illegal immigrant Edwin Ramos gunned down a 49-year-old father and two sons in a road rage murder.
Ramos had previously been arrested for a gang assault and attempted robbery. He had been released by local authorities without being turned over to federal authorities for deportation.