Kamala Harris: ‘Inhumane’ to Tell Migrants ‘Go Back Where You Came From’

Appearing Thursday on MSNBC, 2020 White House contender Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) argued the Trump administration’s treatment of child migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border is “inhumane.” 

A partial transcript is as follows: 

STEPHANIE RUHLE: Compassion matters. And most immigrants say —  excuse me —  most Americans say that immigrants make our country stronger. But there is a new poll, a [Quinnipiac University] poll, where a third of the respondents said that immigrants were a burden to this country. You know San Francisco well, which has a debilitating homelessness problem. What do you say to those Americans who say I have compassion for those in the northern triangle, but I want the government to have compassion for me and I too am suffering?

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: I wouldn’t equate the homeless problem in our country with immigration, Stephanie. Those are two separate issues. On the issue of the northern triangle, let’s talk specifically — and I’m glad you raised that –We have people fleeing murder capitals of the world. When a mother pays a coyote money to transport her child through the expense of a foreign country, in this case from the Northern Triangle through the entire country of Mexico facing unknown peril. One must sit back and ask why would a mother do that? And you know what? Because she knows that the peril her child faces where they are is worse. But yet what is the policy of this administration?

When that child arrives to say, ‘Go back where you came from.’ It is inhumane. It is irresponsible. And it is contrary to who we are, to our nature, and who we say we are. The strong arms of America should be here to receive anyone who is fleeing harm, not to flick them away and to say go back to where you came from. That’s the kind of policy we’ve had had from this administration. And it is intolerable, it is unacceptable and it will end when I am elected.