Vice President Harris' campaign is declining to say whether she would push to close private prisons as president a pledge she has made since she was running for the Senate in 2016. Harris is backing away from several liberal positions she previously framed as moral imperatives as she tries to defeat Donald Trump, Axios reports. In her 2016 campaign for Senate and during her first run for president in 2019, Harris repeatedly called for federal and state governments to abolish the use of private prisons for citizens and undocumented immigrants. "Private prisons are morally wrong, and they're a rotten deal for American taxpayers," she posted on Facebook in 2016. Private prisons have come under scrutiny after instances of corruption and allegations of inhumane treatment in private immigration detention centers.
Harris praised California Gov. Gavin Newsom for signing a bill in 2019 to try close private prisons in the state, posting that "no one should profit off the incarceration of human beings. It's time we did the same nationwide." Harris' campaign is betting it can beat Trump without answering some questions about her positions, including progressive policies she previously backed that some Democrats fear could turn off swing voters. President Biden issued an executive order in early 2021 seeking to ban private prisons for criminals — a move that didn't include immigration detention. "There should be no private prisons, period. None, period," Biden said. As of last year, the U.S. Marshals Service was still locking up at a third of its prisoners in facilities run by private companies, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU dound that more than 90% of the 30,000 people in ICE custody each day were in facilities owned or operated by private corporations.