Suspicious of Don’s immigration policies, says Kamala Harris

Indian-American Kamala Harris, who scripted history by winning a Senate seat, has said she is suspicious of president-elect Donald Trump’s plans to deport 2-3 million undocumented immigrants with criminal history, saying a “whole range of behaviour” can qualify as crime.

“I have an experience with this kind of approach and what I have seen is when you say criminal, that’s a very broad term. It’s not a monolith. There’s a whole range of behaviors that can qualify as being called a crime,” Harris told Miami Herald in an interview.

Harris, 52, is of both India and African heritage and is in Washington DC for a week-long orientation programme for new Senators. She is the first Senator of Indian heritage.

The California Senator said she would be staying in Washington DC after the orientation programme to search for a house. “A DUI (driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol) is very different from rape. And as a career prosecutor I have constantly and consistently seen that one of the best tools in the tool belt of a predator of an undocumented immigrant, be it rape, be it domestic violence, be it fraud, one of the best tools that the predator has is to look at the victim and tell the victim, ‘if you report this, it is you who will be treated like a criminal’,” she said.

“So we have to really think about what is in the best interests of public safety and understand that one of the best ways we can create justice is that we also have to make sure that we set up a system that will protect victims. Just based on previous experience, the definition of a crime can be left up to a lot of interpretation, and I think can have unintended consequences,” she said.