As the vice president heads to the Southern Border Friday in Arizona, Kamala Harris wants you to forget her real record. As the 2024 Democratic nominee for president, she’s desperately trying to repackage herself as a tough prosecutor who will confront America's immigration crisis. But no matter how many campaign ads or carefully crafted speeches she delivers, there is one policy she can never outrun: her support for sanctuary laws and the Americans who died as a direct result of them.
Harris didn’t just passively support sanctuary laws—she actively enforced and defended them, even after horrific murders.
In 2008, the murder of Anthony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, stunned the nation. The Bolognas were on their way home from a family barbecue when they were gunned down by Edwin Ramos, an illegal immigrant and MS-13 gang member. Ramos should never have been in the country. He had a long history of violent arrests and gang activity but was repeatedly shielded from deportation due to San Francisco’s sanctuary city laws—laws Harris embraced as the city’s District Attorney. Instead of being removed from the country after any of his numerous arrests, Ramos remained free to terrorize the streets.
Let that sink in. Harris’s office had the opportunity to charge Ramos after a previous arrest but chose not to. A violent criminal in the country illegally and repeatedly arrested was allowed to stay on the streets because Harris prioritized political correctness over the safety of the citizens she was elected to protect. As a result, three innocent lives were brutally taken, and an entire family was shattered.
To add insult to injury, Harris refused to seek the death penalty against Ramos.
When pressed about the Bologna murders during her 2010 run for Attorney General, Harris showed no remorse. Instead of admitting the failures of her policies, she doubled down, stubbornly defending San Francisco’s sanctuary laws even as the blood of the Bologna family stained her record.
In fact, during her time as Attorney General, Harris was a vocal supporter of "sanctuary" policies. In 2012 and 2014, Harris published "bulletins" to law enforcement reminding them that they did not need to comply with ICE detainer requests to turn over illegal immigrants arrested for other crimes.
In 2015, she used her position as Attorney General to oppose the “Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act” – proposed legislation aimed at curbing sanctuary cities and preventing crimes like the murder of the Bologna family.
Throughout her time as Attorney General, she also actively supported the "California Values Act," legislation that turned the entire state of California into a sanctuary state. Signed into law in 2017 by then Gov. Jerry Brown, the act "prevents state and local law enforcement agencies from using their resources on behalf of federal immigration enforcement.” The law was a project of open-borders and immigration-rights groups throughout Harris’s time as Attorney General, and though Harris had moved on to the U.S. Senate by the time it was signed into law, the California legislator who introduced the bill said Harris “always supported efforts to limit the state’s cooperation with ICE.”
Less than a year after the “California Values Act” was signed into law, in December 2018, police officer Cpl. Ronil Singh was gunned down by an illegal immigrant in Newman, California. Just like Edwin Ramos, Singh’s killer had been arrested multiple times but was shielded from federal immigration authorities thanks to California’s sanctuary state status.
The local sheriff who brought Singh’s killer to justice was unsparing in blaming sanctuary laws: “Law enforcement was prohibited because of sanctuary laws, and that led to the encounter with Officer Singh…the outcome could have been different if law enforcement wasn’t restricted, prohibited or had their hands tied because of political interference.”
The list of victims doesn’t end there. That same month, another illegal immigrant, who had been deported twice, was released under the state’s sanctuary law after a minor arrest. Within 24 hours of his release, he went on a violent rampage – the Washington Post called it a “reign of terror” - killing two people and injuring seven others.
All of these murders were preventable. All of them a direct result of policies Kamala Harris proudly championed throughout her career as a politician —a career that repeatedly placed illegal immigrants, including violent criminals, above the safety of law-abiding citizens.
While Kamala Harris has flip-flopped on many issues—her support for sanctuary cities has remained rock solid. In 2019, when running for president, Kamala Harris once again re-affirmed her support for sanctuary cities and bragged about how she stood up to Barack Obama by telling California cops not to comply with federal law enforcement agencies that enforce immigration law.
What’s most disturbing is that Harris has never expressed an ounce of regret for the role she played in these tragedies. Not once has she distanced herself from the sanctuary city policies that enabled the Bologna family murders. Not once has she acknowledged that these laws might have been a mistake. Instead, she hides behind the false shield of "compassion," pretending that protecting violent criminals is somehow virtuous.
This isn’t just a case of being soft on crime. It’s a blatant disregard for the safety and security of American citizens. The Bologna family paid the ultimate price for Harris’s reckless policies, as did Cpl. Ronil Singh and many others whose deaths can be directly linked to the sanctuary laws Harris has championed.
As voters head to the polls, they must remember this: Kamala Harris has consistently placed her radical left-wing agenda above the safety of the American people. She may claim to be "tough on crime" now, but her record tells a different story—one that is stained by the blood of innocent victims like Anthony Bologna and his sons. America deserves a leader who values the lives of its citizens more than political correctness. Kamala Harris is not that leader.