Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday warned a gathering of Hispanic lawmakers and leaders that GOP rival Donald Trump’s proposed undocumented migrant deportation program could lead to “massive raids” and “detention camps.”
The Democratic presidential nominee made the remarks during an address to a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute conference in Washington during which she largely vowed, if elected, to install policies that would help Hispanic and other voters keep more money that they earn. She also warned that Trump’s proposed policies, and those of congressional Republicans, would take their community and the country “backward.”
Harris was greeted warmly by the midday audience, but the room grew silent as she spoke of Project 2025, a blueprint for a second Trump administration developed by a group of his former advisers and other conservatives, as well as the Republican presidential nominee’s own anti-undocumented migrant words at campaign rallies and on social media.
She criticized Trump’s call, which he repeated during a Tuesday evening campaign town hall in Michigan, for a “mass deportation” program to remove thousands of migrants in the country illegally, if he is elected in November. Harris questioned how a second Trump administration would carry that out.
“Massive raids? Massive detention camps? What are they talking about?” she said to a silent room, testing out a new line about Trump’s proposal.
Harris’ new tack might play well with Hispanic voters and the progressive wing of her party, but a Scripps News/Ipsos survey released earlier Wednesday showed more than half of American adults over the age of 18, 54 percent, “strongly” or “somewhat” support apprehending and removing undocumented migrants.
That includes 86 percent of Republicans surveyed and 58 percent of independents, a key voting bloc she needs in key battleground states.
Her Wednesday appearance came one day after she spoke at a National Association of Black Journalists event in Philadelphia. Her message to that group was about installing economic policies, like more federal help to launch small businesses and capping insulin prices, if she is elected in November.
She picked up Wednesday where she left off, touting her proposed “opportunity economy.”
“The American Dream is elusive for far too many people, increasingly,” Harris said. “And that’s why it is part of my perspective that let’s just do the work of giving first-time home buyers $25,000 in down payment assistance to let them get their foot in the door,” Harris said. “We need to lower the cost of health care, and continue to take on Big Pharma and cap the cost of prescription medications.” She also repeated her call for more federal help to start a business.
But Harris did not explain to the lunchtime audience how she would pay for those proposals, many of which would come at substantial costs to the federal government. She has at previous campaign stops proposed raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans and doing more to make corporations “pay their fair share.”
The vice president’s economic policy sales pitch, though vague in how she would pull it off, was summed up Wednesday by this part of her speech: “I see an America where everyone has an opportunity to own a home, to build wealth, to start a business. … I believe in a future where we can lower the cost of living for America’s families so that people have an opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead.”
Part of that, she said, would be to “continue to lower the cost of groceries.” Some Republicans had called her answers to reporters’ questions at the NABJ event too vague; she added a new line to her grocery prices goals a day later, saying as president she would “take on … price gouging on behalf of big corporations.” But she did not explain how a President Harris would force companies to stop inflating price tags on store shelves.
‘That’s not fair’
Additionally, she warned about Trump returning to power. She said he would aid congressional Republicans, whom she contended “intend to end Medicare and end Medicare’s negotiating power. Essentially, they’re saying that it’s not fair to Big Pharma. … I’ll tell you what’s not fair. What’s not fair is that our seniors, for too long, have had to cut pills in half because they cannot afford their full medication. That’s not fair.”
Some congressional Republicans counter such allegations by saying they merely want to cut down on the cost of domestic entitlement programs.
Black and Latino voters had soured on President Joe Biden before he ended his quest for a second term and endorsed Harris. One of her first moves after ascending to the top of the Democratic ticket was to to try to bring them back into the blue tent.
Polls have painted a mixed picture of how the Latino voter bloc might break come Election Day.
An August poll conducted by BSP Research for the Hispanic Federation and Latino Victory Foundation gave Harris a 24 percentage point lead nationally over Trump (59 percent to 35 percent) among registered Latino voters.
A September NPR/PBS News/Marist College survey, however, showed Trump ahead nationally, 51 percent to 47 percent, among the bloc — a flip since the August version of the survey, which put Harris ahead, 54 percent to 39 percent, a change fueled by independents moving to Trump after Robert F. Kennedy Jr., dropped his independent White House bid. But swing-state polls still give Harris an advantage in the likely decisive battleground states with Latino voters.
A Trump campaign spokesperson contended in a Sunday statement that “Hispanic Americans have been left behind by the failed policies of the Harris-Biden administration.
“Kamala Harris is trying to bring the same failed Communist policies of big government, price controls, censorship, and political lawfare from Cuba and Venezuela here to the United States of America,” said Jaime Florez, Trump campaign and Republican National Committee Hispanic communications director. “President Trump will protect the American dream and make life affordable again for our families.”
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