Actress and liberal activist America Ferrera slammed Vice President Kamala Harris during an appearance on “The View”, saying the vice president’s message to migrants telling them not to travel to the U.S.-Mexico border was “cruel” and “incredibly ineffective.”
The Emmy-winning “Ugly Betty” star was asked her thoughts on recent comments by Ms. Harris, who told migrants “do not come” during a joint press conference with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei.
“I had so many thoughts,” Ms. Ferrera responded, “but first and foremost, extreme disappointment and confusion at just how useless and futile and ineffective a strategy that is.”
“What she said is essentially telling a drowning person to stop flailing for their life, to not do the one thing that might save them or their child,” she continued. “It’s not only incredibly ineffective, as she knows, it’s cruel, and that’s such a disappointment because Vice President Harris and President Biden promised compassion. They promised humanity. They promised that we were going to bring humanity back into our country’s governance and including in our immigration policy.
“Quite honestly, as somebody who campaigned for, rallied, and voted for Biden and Harris — it’s a slap in the face for all of the immigrant advocates who believed, you know, what they promised, which was change and compassion,” Ms. Ferrera added. “So they know better and they should do better.”
“She should be held accountable to these comments because they’re harmful and they perpetuate a very harmful perspective that really does make immigrants in this country less safe,” she said on Wednesday’s show.
Ms. Harris faced backlash from both sides of the political aisle after she said during Monday’s conference, “I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border, do not come. Do not come.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki sought to clarify the vice president’s remarks Tuesday.
“What the vice president was simply conveying is that there’s more work to be done,” she said. “As we’ve said many times from here and from many forums before, we need more time to get the work done to ensure that asylum processing is where it should be.”
Ms. Harris herself has not directly addressed the criticism.
