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A 2019 questionnaire filled out by then-Senator Kamala Harris illuminates her previous support for more progressive causes, contrasting her more moderate approach as she now seeks to appeal to a broad swath of Americans in the final days of the 2024 presidential election.
Harris’s answers on the form by the American Civil Liberties Union indicate that she once backed funding cuts to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and supported taxes being used to fund gender transition surgeries for federal prisoners and detained immigrants. The now-vice president also backed federally decriminalizing drug possession for personal use, and she pledged to “end” immigration detention.
When she filled out the form, Harris was running for president in the 2020 primary, but she ended up dropping out before voting began.
In an interview with CNN in August, Harris noted that she has modified some of her positions, but insisted that her “values have not changed.”
“The Vice President’s positions have been shaped by three years of effective governance as part of the Biden-Harris Administration,” a Harris campaign advisor told CNN.
“As President, she will take that same pragmatic approach, focusing on common-sense solutions for the sake of progress,” a spokesperson added.
Harris’s tougher rhetoric on immigration enforcement departs significantly from the position she took in the 2019 questionnaire.
She wrote that she would end private prisons and immigration detention facilities, adding that she would cut ICE funding.
“Our immigrant detention system is out of control, and I believe we must end the unfair incarceration of thousands of individuals, families and children,” the then-senator wrote. “I was one of the first Senators after President Trump was elected to advocate for a decrease in funding to ICE.”
“As president, I will focus enforcement on increasing public safety, not tearing apart immigrant families. This includes requiring ICE to obtain a warrant where probable cause exists as to end the use of detainers,” she added at the time.
ICE detainers are requests from the agency to local or state law enforcement to hold a person for as much as 48 hours longer than their original release time to allow ICE to potentially deport them.
When reached for comment, the Harris campaign referred to a statement from Communications Director Michael Tyler on Fox News.
“That questionnaire is not what she is proposing or running on. You want to talk about immigration or border security, she has been very clear about ... how she has governed and intends to govern if she is president of the United States,” he said. “You talk about border security, for example, she has made clear the bipartisan border security package that Donald Trump blew up because he thought it would benefit him politically, if it gets on her desk, she will sign it into law.”
On trans rights, Harris said in 2019 that she backed taxpayer-supported gender transition surgeries for federal prisoners and detained immigrants.
“It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition,” Harris wrote. “That’s why, as Attorney General, I pushed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender transition surgery to state inmates.”
“Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment,” she added at the time.
Harris also said on the questionnaire that she supported decriminalizing all drug possession for personal use. Her answer only addressed the notion of legalizing marijuana, pointing to the Marijuana Justice Act, which she co-sponsored and which would have made the drug federally legal.
She added that drug use should be seen as a public health matter rather than an issue of crime.
“Throughout my career, I have supported treating drug addiction as a public health issue, focusing on rehabilitation over incarceration for drug-related offenses,” she wrote at the time.
