During an interview with NBC News on Tuesday, 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris responded to a question on if she would consider starting from scratch with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) like she said when she ran for president the last time by stating that the immigration system “needs to be fixed. And it needs to be fixed in a number of ways,” “that include” the Senate border bill.
NBC News Senior Washington Correspondent Hallie Jackson asked, “[B]ack in 2019, you stopped short of calling to abolish ICE, as some Democrats were doing at the time, but you also said, … we should critically reexamine it and you considered starting from scratch. Would you consider, if you’re president, starting from scratch with ICE?”
Harris responded, “Let me tell you what the Customs and Border Patrol agents need, what the immigration system needs: It needs to be fixed. And it needs to be fixed in a number of ways, that include bringing forth a bill that conservative members of Congress, along with others, pulled together, that we supported actively, that would put 1,500 more border agents at the border, to give those folks who are working around the clock and need support the assistance they need to get their job done. What we would do with that bill, if it were brought forward, is be able to continue to stem the flow of fentanyl coming into the United States, which is ravaging…communities around our country. It would give us more resources to do what we need to do to prosecute transnational criminal organizations, something I have done.”
Harris added, “My proposal includes strengthening what we must do to ensure that we have an orderly and humane immigration system and that we fix what has been broken for a long time, it has transcended administrations, and it needs to be fixed.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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