Vanessa Cárdenas: “Every sentence from Donald Trump seems to contain a noun, a verb, and a dehumanizing and dangerous lie about immigrants. In contrast, Kamala Harris is laying out a broader vision that connects with the strong majority of Americans”
Washington, DC — Today at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute gathering in Washington and yesterday at two appearances (an interview on a prominent Latina podcast and an appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists), VP Kamala Harris defined key immigration contrasts with Donald Trump and Republicans and reiterated both parts of her balanced, “both/and” immigration message. This includes support for both an orderly border and support for legal immigration and a path to citizenship for Dreamers and other long-settled immigrants.
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“Every sentence from Donald Trump seems to contain a noun and a verb and a dehumanizing and dangerous lie about immigrants. In contrast, VP Kamala Harris is laying out a broader vision that connects with the majority of Americans who recoil from Trump’s extremist ideas.
Most Americans want a balanced approach to immigration that pairs an orderly border alongside a pathway to citizenship for immigrant families, instead of the chaos, cruelty and costs of the mass deportation-only alternative. By continuing to lean in and define herself in favor of this vision, VP Harris is aligning herself with where American voters actually are. She is making the contrasts clear with Trump’s preference for ugly and divisive politics. Harris can continue to turn the tables and be on the offense by calling out Trump’s radical, extreme and unworkable agenda and offer solutions that most Americans support.”
In her remarks to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, VP Harris said:
“We must reform our broken immigration system and protect Dreamers and understand that we can do both: create an earned pathway to citizenship and ensure our is secure. We can do both and we must do both. And while we fight to move our nation forward to a brighter future, Donald Trump and his extremist allies will keep trying to pull us backwards. We all remember what they did to tear families apart and now they have pledged to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history. Imagine what that would look like and what that would be. How’s that going to happen, massive raids, massive detention camps? What are they talking about?”
During an interview with the Latina podcast Chiquibaby yesterday, Harris defined key contrasts with Trump and expanded on her broader “both/and” immigration vision, noting:
“[He] wants to run on the problem instead of fixing the problem. That’s not the sign of a leader. You’re supposed to fix problems, not let problems continue for the sake of yourself. Here’s the other thing that’s different about where I stand and where he stands. One, he did not let the solution happen when there was a solution at hand. Two, his policies would separate families. I have always stood and will always stand in the belief that we have to keep families together. We have to take care of our Dreamers. You can look at [Trump’s] policies in the past and going forward, that’s not how he feels. We have to have immigration policy that understands that we can fight for our Dreamers, provide pathways to citizenship for those who earn it, and secure our borders.”
Also yesterday, while speaking at the NABJ event, Harris gave her most forceful denunciation of the dangerous and dehumanizing lies being spread by Donald Trump and his campaign regarding Haitians residing in Springfield, Ohio, calling the rhetoric “hateful” and relying on “tropes” that were “designed to divide us as a country,” noting, “This is exhausting, and it’s harmful. And it’s hateful, and grounded in some age-old stuff that we should not have the tolerance for … It’s got to stop.”
And, as America’s Voice has detailed, both Trump and Vance have refused to answer direct questions about their mass deportation plans, while seeking to distance themselves from ending most legal immigration and the mass deportation blueprint from the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025.
