Former President Bill Clinton made a striking admission at a campaign stop for Vice President Kamala Harris in Georgia, highlighting a stark contrast between the two politicians’ approaches to border security.
Clinton referenced a tragic case in Georgia where a young woman was killed by an undocumented immigrant. He suggested that if the immigration vetting process was more thorough, such incidents might be prevented. “If they’d all been properly vetted, that probably wouldn’t have happened,” Clinton said.
While Clinton’s statement was a rare acknowledgment of the dangers posed by an unsecured southern border, it was also a thinly veiled attack on Harris’s immigration policies. Clinton claimed that Harris is the only candidate who has supported legislation to ensure “total vetting before people got in” at the border.
However, a closer look at the Senate bill Harris endorsed reveals that it falls short of Clinton’s expectations. The legislation does not actually improve the vetting process for migrants who illegally cross the border. Instead, it would legalize the Biden administration’s “catch-and-release” policy, which has allowed thousands of migrants to be released into the US without proper screening.
Just days before the Biden administration released a migrant accused of murder into the US on humanitarian parole, Harris told NBC News that the southern border was “secure.” This statement was contradicted by Clinton’s own admission that the border is not secure and that migrants are being released into the country without proper vetting.
The Biden administration has been using its “parole” power to release migrants into the US, often without proper screening or follow-up. This has led to concerns about public safety, as migrants with serious criminal histories are being released into communities without any attempt to track them.
The Senate bill Harris supports would actually make this process easier, mandating the release of migrants who are caught at the border without proper detention or deportation proceedings. Instead, they would be fitted with ankle bracelets and enrolled in ICE’s “Alternatives to Detention” programs, which have been shown to be ineffective in tracking and deporting migrants who cut off their ankle monitors.
In reality, the Senate bill does nothing to address the lack of vetting for migrants who are released into the US. It would only codify the Biden administration’s flawed policies and allow thousands more migrants to be released into the country without proper screening. Harris’s support for this bill is a stark reminder of the disconnect between her campaign rhetoric and the reality of her immigration policies.
