Kamala Harris tours border, 2011 (Office of the Attorney General of California/Wikimedia Commons)

As a California senator, Kamala Harris sought to protect the U.S.-Mexico border from an urgent "crisis"—but it wasn't the immigration crisis.

On April 30, 2019, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee led a group of California Democrats in calling on the Trump administration to address the "ongoing pollution crisis along California's border with Mexico," according to her now-defunct Senate website.

"Over the past couple of months, the region has experienced several cross-boundary flows, totaling millions of gallons of treated and untreated wastewater flowing into the United States and affecting our constituents," the lawmakers wrote. They argued that air pollution from agricultural fires and diesel emissions in Mexico contributed to heart disease, asthma, and stroke in residents in San Diego and the Imperial Valley in southern California.

Harris's concerns about cross-border pollution resurface as Republicans zero in on her role as "border czar" of her and President Joe Biden's administration, which has overseen a record number of illegal border crossings. In that role, Harris was supposed to combat illegal immigration by solving the crisis's "root causes."

To combat that narrative, Harris's campaign said in a digital ad this week that she "supports increasing the number of Border Patrol agents." That's contradicted, however, by a letter that Harris issued on April 27, 2018, as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Democrats on the committee called for a freeze in funding for then-president Donald Trump's border wall, any "new Border Patrol agents," and Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel.

Harris opposed the Trump administration's plans to build the border wall, calling the project a "stupid use of money."

Harris has often criticized Customs and Border Protection, the agency that marshals the U.S.-Mexico border, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which handles deportation cases against illegal aliens. In September 2021, she spread the debunked allegation that Customs and Border Protection officers used horse whips to corral Haitian migrants who crossed the border. She has called for defunding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and accused the agency of "crimes against humanity" over conditions at its detention centers.

Harris's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

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