Vice President Kamala Harris skirted answering whether illegal immigrants should receive federal government healthcare when pressed by an undecided Latino voter during a Nevada town hall Thursday.
Harris’s stance on the matter has come under scrutiny after her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) claimed last weekend that the vice president did not support his policies that illegal immigrants should be permitted to have Minnesota driver’s licenses, free state university tuition, and free healthcare program for low-income residents.
“Do you have plans to support that subgroup of immigrants who have been here their whole lives, or most of them, and have to live and die in the shadows?” Harris was asked by Univision town hall attendee Ivett Castillo.
Castillo, from Nevada, had earlier explained to Harris that her Mexican-born mother died six weeks ago but “was never, ever able to get the type of care and service that she needed or deserved.”
In her response, Harris remarked about the United States’s “broken immigration system” and criticized Republicans for not supporting a border security bill they helped negotiate this spring because of former President Donald Trump but did not directly answer Castillo’s question.
“Had your mother been able to gain citizenship she would have been entitled to healthcare that may have alleviated her suffering and yours,” Harris told Castillo. “This is one example of the fact that there are real people who are suffering because of an inability to put solutions in front of politics.”
Regarding a later question, Harris did say that healthcare should be a “right.”
During her 2020 campaign, Harris supported illegal migrants benefiting from her sponsored Medicare for All bill. President Joe Biden‘s original immigration legislation sought to create more pathways to citizenship for illegal immigrants but was not taken up by Congress.
Harris has granted more media interviews and agreed to take part in more media appearances to try to mitigate voter concerns that they do not know her well enough to cast a ballot for her one month before the election.
The audience who watched the town hall on Thursday, either in English or Spanish, was also able to see for themselves her reaction to criticism related to how she became the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee this summer. The question underscored Harris’s general struggle to distinguish herself from Biden as polling suggests she is in the margin of error with Trump four weeks before Election Day.
Mario Sigbaum, from California, told Harris through interpreters he was “concerned” about how Biden was “pushed aside” by the Democratic Party in July after his debate performance the month prior and polling that indicated Trump was poised to win in November.
“Thank you for being so candid and allowing me to answer the question,” Harris said. “He and I have been partners for the last four years as his vice president to him as the president, and I am honored to have earned the Democratic nomination. I am honored to have the endorsement of people from every walk of life. You will probably find that I probably have a bigger coalition of people who couldn’t seem to be more different than each other, who had come together around my candidacy.”
The final question Harris fielded came from another California voter, Teresa Djedjro, who asked the vice president, who has called for the restoration of civility in politics, to name three of Trump’s most redeeming qualities.
“I think Donald Trump loves his family, and I think that’s very important,” Harris said. “But I don’t really know him, to be honest with you, I only met him one time on the debate stage. I’d never met him before, so I don’t really have much more to offer you.”
The town hall is not only part of Harris’s media strategy, but it is also part of her overt outreach to minority voters, particularly Latino and black men, who are increasingly supporting Trump. Although Trump does not need to win the majority of minority voters on Nov. 5, he can cause Harris to lose by chipping away at her appeal among crucial demographics.
“We’re showing Harris running about even with Trump among Latino voters,” Marist Institute for Public Opinion director Lee Miringoff told the Washington Examiner earlier Thursday.
In comparison, Biden and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had a more than 30 percentage point advantage over Trump in their respective elections against him.
“Latinos are clearly a weak spot for her, hence the town hall,” Miringoff said.
In response to a question from a reporter traveling with her on her Sun Belt swing about the importance of Latino voters, Harris compared herself and Biden to Trump.
“Donald Trump has shown himself to be someone who thrives on trying to divide us as a nation, and demean people, and call people names, and that is not the sign of the character of someone that we want as president of the United States,” she said after the town hall on the tarmac of Harry Reid International Airport. “We have so much more in common than what separates us as Americans, and it is, I think, in the best interests of everyone to have a leader who measures their strength not based on who they beat down but on who they lift up, and that is the kind of president I intend to be.”
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As the Democratic nominee, Harris has tended not to hold town halls, preferring rallies, with her first in Michigan last month alongside popular talk show host Oprah Winfrey. She has agreed to participate in another town hall on CNN on Oct. 23 instead of a second debate with Trump.
Trump’s Univision town hall will take place next Wednesday after it was postponed because of Hurricane Milton.
