Activists are increasingly targeting Vice President Kamala Harris as they battle to inject a large amnesty for illegal immigrants into the Democrats‘ massive social safety net makeover, saying she has the power to make their dream a reality.
Advocates say Ms. Harris, as the presiding officer of the Senate, could override the chamber parliamentarian’s decision that has, so far, prevented Democrats from adding the amnesty to the multitrillion-dollar package.
And if the vice president does it, they say, she‘ll be seen as the person who finally delivered legal status to millions of illegal immigrants.
That Ms. Harris is a daughter of immigrants and was seen as a top advocate for illegal immigrants during her four years as a senator only enhances the moment for her, said Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA in Action.
“Democrats owe a debt to immigrants in exchange for each election cycle in which we mobilized our people to the polls because of the promise to reform our broken immigration system,” Mr. Torres said. Vice President Harris has the law and the power on her side to deliver on that promise.”
He was part of a coalition of more than 50 groups that sent a letter to Ms. Harris last week urging her on. Activists also staged a protest outside the vice president’s residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory this week, asking for a meeting to make their case.
They said they heard nothing, so they released the Sept. 30 letter to the public.
Activists were rallying Thursday on both coasts to increase the pressure, with a demonstration outside the White House and another in Los Angeles, where advocates plan to tout another letter with more than 80 groups calling on the vice president to take the reins.
If Ms. Harris delivers on the activists’ demand, though, it could rewrite the legislative process in the Senate, igniting a chain that would doom the filibuster.
“If the parliamentarian’s rulings mean nothing then the 60-vote rule means nothing, and therefore the filibuster is done,” said Michael McKenna, a former top legislative official in the Trump White House.
At issue is legal status for perhaps the majority of illegal immigrants. Democrats want to offer a path to citizenship, and hope to tuck those provisions into the budget bill now being written.
Using the budget allows Senate Democrats, who control the chamber, to avoid a GOP-led filibuster, but it comes with restrictions on what kinds of policies can be included. Democrats have submitted two different plans, but neither met the budget test, ruled Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough.
Activists want to see Ms. Harris, who as vice president is the chief presiding officer of the Senate, make a different ruling.
Ms. Harris‘s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
At least politically, the demand is similar to the one pro-Trump activists made of then-Vice President Mike Pence in January, when they urged him to reject the results of the 2020 election in the Electoral College vote.
The chief difference is that few thought Mr. Pence had powers under the Constitution to make such a move, where Ms. Harris would be on firm legal footing, should she choose to do it.
Legislative experts, including former parliamentarians themselves, say that while following a parliamentarian’s ruling has become standard in the Senate, the presiding officer always retains the right to make a different ruling. Any senator can challenge that ruling and put the matter to a vote, where majority Democrats would prevail.
Activists, in their Sept. 30 letter to Ms. Harris, said she owes them for delivering votes in last year’s election, and as an elected official can — and should — reject the parliamentarian’s decision.
“This is exactly the kind of bold action the people demanded when they gave Democrats control of both chambers of Congress and the presidency,” the groups wrote. “It is imperative that you exercise your legitimate authority to advance the Judiciary Committee’s proposal to provide a pathway to citizenship.”
If an exception is carved out for immigration, though, then it opens the door to other exceptions, creating a broad loophole in the power of the filibuster.
And that is unlikely to fly with Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and perhaps several other Democrats who want to preserve the power of the filibuster.
“Reconciliation would be dead, dead, deadest,” said Mr. McKenna, the former Trump legislative official who now pens a column for The Washington Times.
Mr. Manchin this week also told Latino Rebels that immigration is “too big” to be part of the budget bill.
The activists are putting pressure on other Democrats beyond Ms. Harris.
New Yorkers have declared #NoSleepTilCitizenship, hauling sleeping bags and blankets to camp out in front of Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer’s Brooklyn home. And in Illinois, activists have targeted Sen. Richard Durbin, who as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is charged with writing any immigration proposal.
In Arizona, activists followed Ms. Sinema into a bathroom at Arizona State University on Sunday to make their case for citizenship, sparking a debate over the propriety of their behavior.
Ms. Harris, though, has become a focal point for activists, after President Biden tapped her to try to get a handle on the unprecedented surge of illegal immigrants who’ve overwhelmed Homeland Security since January.
While her team insists her billet is handling the overseas part of the equation, trying to solve the “push” factors that make people leave their homes, she’s become the face of the broader mess at the border.
New polling released Thursday shows little confidence the vice president is up to the task.
A staggering 75% of voters surveyed gave Ms. Harris a “poor” rating for handling “the southern border crisis.” That included 55% of Democrats, according to the September survey sponsored by Convention of States Action and conducted by the Trafalgar Group.
The Biden team has found its push to erase Trump-era get-tough policies stymied by both the courts and the reality of the border surge.
In one key policy, Homeland Security continues to expel tens of thousands of people without giving them a chance at asylum, angering immigration activists.
Jung Woo Kim, organizing director for the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium, said the White House has some ground to make up and Ms. Harris could begin to fix things by overriding the parliamentarian.
“Vice President Harris has a unique opportunity to reverse the Biden-Harris administration’s currently dire legacy on immigration,” said Mr. Kim, who is himself an illegal immigrant in the U.S. under protection of the DACA program.
Democrats on Capitol Hill are still hoping it doesn’t come to that.
One “Plan C” option would be to offer legislative language that stops short of an explicit pathway to citizenship but instead offers a tentative legal status such as “parole,” which is the same pathway the Biden administration is using to allow Afghan evacuees into the U.S.