Before She Was Border Czar, Kamala Misappropriated Millions in Federal Grants Meant to Combat Border Crimes

As district attorney for San Francisco, Kamala Harris misappropriated over $5 million in federal grants that were intended to combat border crimes, according to a 2010 Department of Justice audit.

Records show that Harris, while serving as chief prosecutor of the sanctuary city from 2004 to 2011, requested millions of dollars from the Department of Justice’s Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative. The program reimburses local prosecutors for handling “illegal immigration and drug and alien smuggling cases” referred to them by federal authorities.

But a DOJ inspector general audit report found that none of the cases that Harris’s office filed for reimbursement were eligible under the program. The city was forced to pay back the improper funding claims.

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As district attorney, Harris championed San Francisco’s status as a “sanctuary city, a city of refuge,” and vowed not to prosecute immigration offenses. But her office still raked in over $5 million in unlawful reimbursements from the federal program intended to address migrant-related crimes.

DOJ auditors said they noticed a “red flag” after Harris’s office requested significantly more reimbursements in 2006 from the program than any other local prosecutor in the United States, “despite being located about 500 miles north of the Southwest Border,” according to a 2010 report issued by the DOJ inspector general.

Harris’s office claimed the money was repayment for handling illegal immigrant-linked drug cases that the U.S. Attorney’s office had referred to her agency for prosecution. But the inspector general investigation determined that none of the cases were eligible and they had not been referred to Harris by federal prosecutors.

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The investigation found that Harris’s office, instead of submitting individual cases for reimbursement, had “submitted approximately 30 percent of its drug cases” for the funding, even though the “cases were not federally initiated.”

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