SAUNDERS: Kamala Harris goes to the border. All hat. No policy.

WASHINGTON

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security delivered alarming news to Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, about the number of noncitizens with serious criminal records inside U.S. borders.

There were 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories on ICE’s docket as of July 21, DHS Deputy Director Patrick J. Lechleitner wrote to Gonzales. More than 435,000 are convicted criminals, including 13,099 convicted of homicide, 15,811 convicted of sexual assault, and more than 11,000 convicted of other sexual offenses. Another 222,141 noncitizens face pending criminal charges.

Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about the phenomenon at Monday’s White House daily briefing. He said, “13,000 people who’ve been convicted of murder crossed the border illegally and are living among us. So how much danger are U.S. communities in right now because of this?”

The press secretary scolded Doocy for making “false representation,” told him to communicate “in a way that is not confusing to the American people” — and she used the word “lying.”

I’d say Doocy didn’t convey what the DHS letter was about. The 435,719 individuals on ICE’s non-detained docket “are already here” for other crimes, Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies told me.

That’s a big number for people who shouldn’t still be here because they’ve violated federal immigration law and state laws.

For his part, Donald Trump says that if he is elected in November, he would deport all undocumented migrants — which is unimaginable.

With millions of people in the United States illegally, many of them having put down roots over decades, it’s not possible— or desirable — for the government to deport every adult here illegally.

“They can’t detain everyone,” Vaughan noted.

But deporting noncitizens with serious criminal records who prey on others — that’s just common sense.

The Department of Homeland Security has pointed out that some of the non-detained criminals may have medical issues or be held in state prison today. But as Vaughan pointed out, if they’re in state prison, that means they committed additional crimes.

Why isn’t the government doing a better job?

There are obstacles to deporting criminals, including “recalcitrant” countries like Venezuela, Cuba and China that prefer to leave their criminals in the United States. But a bureaucracy serious about enforcing the law can do better. Not just give up.

The biggest impediment has been a lack of will in Washington, and that’s where Vice President Kamala Harris comes in.

On Friday, Harris went to Douglas, Arizona, to explain how she was going to “fix our broken immigration system.”

Her best start would have been an apology, an admission that she was wrong to support sanctuary city policies in San Francisco and California when she was a prosecutor and state attorney general. As the DHS letter noted, “‘sanctuary’ policies can end up shielding dangerous criminals, who often victimize (immigrant) communities.”

Harris also could have offered an acknowledgment that in their zeal to appear morally superior, she and Biden embraced rhetoric that encouraged desperate people to risk their health and safety in the hopes that they’d be able to cross the U.S. border illegally without legal consequences.

From May 2023 through July 2024, DHS removed nearly 900,000 individuals — and yet, the number of illegal immigrants on the non-detained docket exceeded 7 million in Fiscal Year 2023. It was 3.3 million before Biden took office, according to The Associated Press.

Now it’s 2024. So instead of explaining why she has soured on the sanctuary concept — um, she wants to be president — Harris repeated stock phrases about “understanding how solutions get formed,” “actually doing the work of fixing a problem” and wanting “to fix a problem instead of running on a problem.”

Also: “The American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games and their personal political future.”

Which means voters should not vote for Kamala Harris.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.