Staff Reports
The escapades of Vice President Kamala Harris are once again serving up a hot dish of controversy, dusting off her past as she championed the rights of illegal immigrants to obtain law licenses. Back in the halcyon days of 2012, when Harris was the Attorney General of California, she threw her support behind an illegal alien named Sergio Garcia, who was remarkably eager to hang a shingle as a lawyer despite lacking the legal right to reside in the United States.
Garcia, who had been in the U.S. illegally since he moved from Mexico at the tender age of 17, maneuvered his way through a legal quagmire that culminated in a showdown at the California Supreme Court. Harris, ever the opportunist, jumped into the fray with an amicus brief arguing that locking Garcia out of the legal profession amounted to an affront to society’s values. Her office claimed that preventing Garcia from joining the State Bar would contradict both the state and federal policies favoring contributions from immigrants, legally or otherwise.
Flashback: Harris Pressured Obama Admin to Give Illegal Immigrants Law Licenses https://t.co/SGm4kJlIPu pic.twitter.com/4RRjS3NIRq
— Brett Murphy (@BrettMurphyX) September 25, 2024
In contrast, the Obama Administration—a group not exactly known for its immigration enforcement zeal—expressed its disapproval, claiming that Harris’s antics ran afoul of the 1996 federal immigration law. That law, which forbids issuing law licenses to “unlawfully present aliens,” stood in direct opposition to Harris’s narrative of inclusivity and opportunity. Still, it was a case of the squeaky wheel getting the grease, as Garcia ultimately scored a victory and became California’s first illegal immigrant granted the privilege to practice law.
In a stunning display of allegiance to those who fade into the background of the legal framework, Harris even went so far as to award Garcia the Medal of Valor. This sparked a wave of head-scratching sentiments as a medal typically reserved for brave service members and first responders was granted to someone who, by her own admission, was not a legal U.S. citizen. But who needs legal status when one has the support of the highest office in the state?
Fast forward to 2019, and Harris was not finished bending the rules for those who had crossed the border illegally. She openly clashed with the Obama Administration once again, advocating against deportations for illegal immigrants who hadn’t committed any crimes, an expansive definition that conveniently excluded the crime of crossing the border unlawfully. As if crossing a line of sand doesn’t count, she directed California sheriffs to ignore federal detainers, urging them to act according to what she deemed the interests of community safety. If the regulatory ground had been shaking under her feet before, it was now positively quaking with her insistence that those living in the shadows deserved more rights than law-abiding citizens ever could.
Through these escapades, Harris has clearly maintained a level of inconsistency that would make a politician proud: her brand of justice seems to favor those who disregard the very laws meant to protect American citizens. For a country weary of open borders and illegal immigration, her past actions don’t paint a comforting picture. It seems the only bar she’s committed to promoting is the one that serves up rights for those who should not be in the country in the first place.
