Presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is calling it as she sees it, and as far as she’s concerned, the Trump administration is waging a “campaign of terror” against immigrants in this country.
As AOL.com reports, Harris called out the current administration during an extensive interview on Meet The Press when asked about the terrifying ICE raids in Mississippi last week which ended in the arrest of 680 undocumented workers.
“I don’t know why they did what they did…I don’t know why they decided to do it right after El Paso,” Harris said, referring to the mass shooting in Texas targeting the Latinx community that left 22 dead. “The employers have to be responsible and they have to do whatever is required by law. But there’s another point here, Chuck, which is this administration has directed DHS to conduct these raids as part of what I believe is this administration’s campaign of terror — which is to make whole populations of people afraid to go to work. Children are afraid to go to school for fear that when they come home, their parents won’t be there.”
Harris told host Chuck Todd that she didn’t think the administration or the president could do anything to reassure Hispanic Americans.
“I don’t think it would be authentic if he did. And I think people are smart enough to know that,” she said.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, who was also a part of the discussion acknowledged that the timing of the raid “was unfortunate”, said that the plan had already been in motion by the time the terror attack in El Paso had occurred.
“Something like this has been planned for over a year,” he said. “This is a criminal investigation with 14 federal warrants issued by a judge, and ICE had to follow through on that.”
And so, last week hundreds of children were left stranded on the first day of school in Mississippi, their parents taken away without their knowledge. One video of a little girl crying for her father went viral.
According to CNN, the community tried to rally around the young children, with everyone from strangers to neighbors volunteering to take them in.
The following day about half of those arrested were given court dates. However, none of the officials at the plants who hired the undocumented workers were arrested, as AOL notes.
McAleenan claimed that this was because an investigation was ongoing.
“You get a warrant from a federal judge with probable cause. You then go gather evidence at the sites. And then you look at the appropriate charges in concert with the Department of Justice and U.S. attorney to see how you proceed,” he said.