Harris backed by major Latino voter group: ‘She understands immigrants’

The immigrant rights group Make the Road Action is backing Kamala Harris in its first-ever general election presidential endorsement.

The 15-year-old organisation dedicated to Latino voter engagement in key swing states including Nevada and Pennsylvania, had previously supported Bernie Sanders in the 2020 presidential primaries but has otherwise avoided endorsing any presidential candidates. The voter mobilization group's endorsement on Thursday, provided first to the Guardian, comes amid a rush of enthusiasm for Harris's nascent campaign.

"Harris taking on the nomination has added a new kind of energy," said Theo Oshiro, executive director at Make the Road New York. "Our members are excited. Harris is a woman of colour, and a person who comes from an immigrant family. So they see their children or themselves in this candidate. They feel that she is someone who at least understands where we are coming from."

The decision to make this first-ever general election endorsement came after two meetings with more than 250 members, who debated the stakes of the election before ultimately agreeing to publicly support Harris.

The group is concerned about issues including housing affordability, the climate crisis and the US government's role in Israel's war on Gaza. But immigration rights were the main focus of deliberations.

Painful memories from the Trump administration's immigration policies, as well as his amped-up anti-immigrant rhetoric and his legally dubious plans for mass deportations and vast detention camps for migrants had upped the pressure. "We are hungry, and ready to fight back," Oshiro said. "This was one of those moments in history where we had to come together to beat Donald Trump."

Harris will need to shore up support from Latinx communities in swing states, including Pennsylvania and Nevada where Make the Road has a presence, to secure a victory in November. The organisation is on track to knock about 1m doors this election cycle - including half a million in Pennsylvania, and 330,000 in Nevada.

Members agreed that Harris has a complicated record on immigration, starting with her warning during her first foreign trip as vice-president to would-be Guatemalan immigrants: "Do not come" across the US-Mexico border. Harris will also have to answer for the Biden administration's decision to severely restrict asylum at the US southern border.

But Harris has also shown that she is someone who is willing to work with immigrant rights activists and push for much-needed reforms, Oshiro said. Shortly after the Biden administration announced his asylum restrictions, infuriating many Democrats and Latino leaders who likened them to Trump-era policies, the administration also unveiled a new plan to provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented spouses of US citizens.

"We talked about this deeply, because the Biden administration, and by extension, Kamala Harris as Biden's vice-president, have not been perfect on immigration," Oshiro said. "When we're doing endorsements, we're not picking a saviour. We're picking someone we think we can move and push to the right direction."