Nikki Haley says VP’s comparison of ICE to the KKK means she’s wrong person to fix border crisis 

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley joined other conservatives in slamming Vice President Kamala Harris for her stance on immigration, saying she can’t be trusted because of her comments comparing ICE to the Ku Klux Klan.

Kamala Harris is now in charge of the White House response to the southern border crisis, a decision that has been met with fierce rebuke from conservatives.  

‘How can we trust Kamala Harris to deal with the border crisis when she compared ICE to the KKK in 2018?’ Haley asked in her Friday afternoon tweet. ‘Answer: We can’t.’

Haley was specifically referencing a congressional hearing in 2018 when Harris, then a U.S. senator for California, compared Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the KKK.     

Harris immediately faced a slew of criticism from conservatives for her very lax stance on immigration.

‘An undocumented immigrant is not a criminal,’ Harris tweeted in April 2017 in bashing then-President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration policy.

Republicans were quick to pounce on Biden’s decision to put Harris at the helm of this issue, pointing to her past criticism of offices dealing with the border. 

In her 2017 tweet, Harris vowed: ‘We are not a society that is going to stand for tearing families apart. We are not going to buy into this administration’s fear mongering.’

Then-Senator Harris continued: ‘It’s ludicrous to say we’re going to deport 12 million people. Now how are you going to do that?’

‘Give people a path to citizenship,’ she urged in her Twitter thread just a few months after Trump took office. ‘The vast majority of folks we’re talking about are living a lawful life and paying taxes.’ 

The vice president was put in charge of addressing the administration’s response, it was announced Wednesday.

Her response is expected to focus on two different areas. The first is slowing the flow of ‘irregular migrants’ by instead looking at and addressing ‘root causes’ that prompted them to leave their home countries. Secondly the vice president wants to strengthen relationships with Mexico and Central American countries.

Harris, conservatives were quick to point out, is ‘weak’ on immigration and they claim the move is indicative of the White House not taking the mass migration crisis at the southern border seriously.

Josh Hawley, a hardline Republican senator from Missouri, tweeted Wednesday: ‘This is the person Joe Biden is putting in charge of the border – an advocate for decriminalizing illegal border crossing.’

He was referencing how Harris raised her hand during a Democratic primary debate in June 2019 when candidates were asked if they were in favor of decriminalizing border crossings.

Harris made clear Thursday that the administration is discouraging migrants from arriving at the border right now.

‘While we are clear that people should not come to the border now, we also understand that we will enforce the law and that we also—because we can chew gum and walk at the same time—must address the root causes that cause people to make the trek, as the president has described, to come here,’ the vice president said.

During his campaign, Biden said all asylum seekers would be welcomed – and when he was elected president in November 2020, a massive caravan from Central American began migrating to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican, said Biden has made ‘about the worst possible choice’ by tapping Harris to lead the border crisis response. Critics, like the border-state leader, pointed to the vice president’s previous statements as evidence of her being unfit for the role.

‘I have been informed that Vice President Kamala Harris has been put in charge of border security,’ said Ducey, whose state has 370 miles of border with Mexico.

‘She’s about the worst possible choice that one could make,’ he added. ‘In no point in her career has she given any indication that she considers the border a problem or a serious threat.’

In Harris’ book ‘The Truths We Hold’, which was published in 2019 as she ran in the Democratic presidential primary, she exhibited her pro-immigration stances.

‘There are a few things more cruel, more inhumane, more fundamentally evil than ripping a child from her parent’s arms,’ Harris wrote in her book, which came as the Trump administration received intense criticism after pictures of children migrants in ‘cages’ emerged.

‘The administration claimed that it wouldn’t separate families seeking asylum if they arrived at an official port of entry, as opposed to other parts of the border,’ she continued. ‘But that didn’t hold true.’

Despite these comments, Biden’s administration is now urging migrants – even those seeking asylum – not to come to the U.S.-Mexico border right now.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has said the ‘border is closed.’

Mayorkas, and other officials have been doing damage control as Biden faces the biggest challenge of his presidency in the situation at the border – which the administration so far has refused to call a ‘crisis.’

‘She’s leading the effort,’ Biden said Wednesday in announcing Harris as point person. ‘The best thing to do is put someone when he or she speaks, they don’t have to wonder about is that where the president is.

‘She speaks for me. She knows what she’s doing,’ he assured.

Conservatives are also pointing out the hypocrisy of Biden and Harris by denouncing Trump’s policies, but now implementing some of the same.

John Cooper, a spokesman for the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, tweeted of Harris: ‘Let’s take a walk down memory lane and look at some of her recent statements about the border, kids in cages, and more!’

He referenced her previous comparison between the KKK and ICE, and her promise that children would not be kept ‘in cages’.

He also pointed out she said child migrants should not be ‘treated like criminals’, and now the Biden/Harris administration keeping thousands in detention and holding facilities.

‘These are just some of the things Vice Pres. Harris has said about the border. Some are extreme positions, like bragging about making her state a sanctuary state,’ he wrote on Twitter.

‘Others show her political opportunism,’ he continued. ‘She is unfit to be handling any response to this border crisis.’ 

Harris is not unique in being a Democrat in opposition to Trump’s border wall – something conservatives have lamented ever since Biden halted construction and froze Pentagon funds already appropriated for the project.

‘A wall will not secure our border and I remain concerned those billions of dollars may also be used to implement this Administration’s anti-immigrant agenda—one that targets California and its residents,’ Harris said in 2018.

Her comments were made as she voted against the bill appropriating $25 billion in border wall funding.

At the time, Republicans held a majority in the Senate, and the measure passed.