How Kamala Harris wanted to cut funding for ICE and provide financial support for transgender migrants wanting surgery

Vice President Kamala Harris has long supported the idea of ​​taxpayers funding gender reassignment surgery for transgender people. But a new document reveals just how far she would go to ensure that everyone in prison feels comfortable with their gender.

A recently released 2019 ACLU poll found that Harris supports sex reassignment surgery for illegal immigrants or migrants in federal custody.

Harris answered yes when asked whether she would provide government-funded care to “transgender and nonbinary people” — including “people in prison and immigration detention.”

“It is important that transgender people who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, including access to treatments related to gender reassignment,” Harris wrote, explaining her response.

“Transitional care is a medical necessity and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for delivering essential medical care to provide transitional care,” she added.

Harris was not always an unflinching advocate for the gender care prisoners needed.

When she was California’s attorney general, Harris joined the prison administration in filing a petition in May 2015 with the Ninth Circuit Court to block gender reassignment surgery for a biological male who was transitioning into a woman.

She lost the case after a federal judge in San Francisco ordered the state of California to perform the surgery.

Later in her career, Harris changed her mind and found that she was helping transgender prisoners get the care they needed.

United States Vice President Kamala Harris hosts a roundtable discussion marking LGBTQ+ Pride Month in the Vice President’s Office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building

United States Vice President Kamala Harris hosts a roundtable discussion marking LGBTQ+ Pride Month in the Vice President’s Office

‘When I found out what they were doing behind the scenes, I got them to change the policy, Harris falsely claimed claimed during an LGBT forum during the 2020 Democratic primaries.

“I promise you that there will always be things in these systems that these agencies do.”

Since then, Harris has addressed the sensitivities of the transgender community, including when it comes to gender issues.

She has openly stated her gender pronouns (she/her) at events attended by transgender people, making her the first U.S. Vice President to do so.

Her campaign has also indicated that she wants to include transgender people by giving candidates the opportunity to select nine different genders.

Vice President Kamala Harris leaves Air Force Two in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Migrants walk along the highway through Suchiate, in the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico.

Harris also went further than most Democrats when she showed the ACLU that she was determined to cut funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“Our immigration detention system is excessive and I believe we must end the unfair incarceration of thousands of individuals, families and children,” Harris wrote in the questionnaire.

“I was one of the first senators after President Trump was elected to advocate for a reduction in funding for ICE.”

During her unsuccessful 2016 presidential campaign, Harris also expressed support for completely reimagining the existence of the federal immigration service.

“I think there’s no question that we need to reexamine ICE and its role, the way it’s managed, the work that it’s doing,” Harris told MSNBC host Kasie Hunt. “And we probably need to consider starting over from scratch.”