The Outrider

The shift in Kamala Harris' immigration policies reflects the national mood against illegal immigrants

- Mohammad Ali

MEMORY is rather an inconvenient thing for politics. Not long ago, I remember, Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, was known as a champion for immigrant rights in the Senate, and even later during her 2020 presidential bid. At the time she, like her party, embraced an unequivocally pro-immigrant stance. They defined their immigration platform in opposition to the policies of former President Donald Trump’s first term—separating families detained at the border, a travel ban on Muslim-majority countries and efforts to gut the asylum system among them.

In 2020, when Harris was campaigning to get the party nomination, I was dating a left-leaning American activist who would particularly talk about the immigrant-friendly positions Harris took to allow undocumented immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses, qualify for free tuition at some universities, or even public health insurance under a universal plan.

I moved to the United States in 2018—a year after I got death threats in India for my reporting. As someone who had gotten a scholarship to attend Columbia University’s journalism school, it was my second and last year in the US on a student visa. I had no idea what I would do once the visa expired. I was totally new in the country and wasn’t sure if I would get a permanent job that could offer me an H1B1 sponsorship. But I looked at the US as my refuge.

Anxious as I was about my uncertain visa situation, listening to Harris was heartwarming for me. Not that I was thinking of becoming an illegal or undocumented immigrant, but I had told myself that I would not go back to India.