Vice President Kamala Harris visited McCormick Place on Monday, seeking to enlist Latino support in a coalition to defeat “extremists” and their agenda of taking away hard-fought rights.
Conferencegoers in brightly colored suit jackets and dresses gathered to hear Harris at the culmination of the 2023 UnidosUS Annual Conference: “The Power of US.” The conference — organized by UnidosUS, formerly National Council of La Raza, the largest Latino nonprofit advocacy organization in the country — brought together national and local leaders to celebrate the Latino community in Chicago and across the nation.
Harris referenced the history of the group, dating back to the height of the Civil Rights Movement when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. sent a telegram to Cesar Chavez about the farmworkers’ movement, writing that “our separate struggles are really one.”
“The founders of this organization had a mission to empower Latinos economically, politically and socially, and to do so by uniting communities and seeking common ground,” Harris said.
“When we, together, fight in coalition for the freedom, rights and justice of all people, that is an act of patriotism. When we celebrate our diversity and recognize that unity is our strength, we then build a stronger nation, a stronger democracy and a stronger world,” she said.
Harris stressed the “challenges of the moment we are in” as a result of “extremist so-called leaders.” She referenced recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings that reversed a federal right to an abortion and affirmative action at universities and limited the Voting Rights Act, as well as efforts within states to curb the availability of books and teaching of race in U.S. history.
While her remarks ran the gamut of hot-button political issues ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Harris put a high emphasis on immigration reform.
“Across our nation, extremists, so-called leaders, demonize, target and attack immigrants,” she said.
Harris denounced the new immigration policy passed in Florida earlier this month, which cracks down on migrants’ ability to work, seek medical care and travel freely without proper documentation of citizenship. She also condemned reports from Texas about authorities who have pushed children and pregnant women who crossed the Rio Grande back into the river and refused to provide basic necessities, such as water, to migrants crossing in deadly heat.
Harris — the first female, first Black American and the first South Asian American to be vice president — has a long history of collaborating with UnidosUS and its predecessor organization dating back to 2011. That’s when she helped push for the California Homeowner Bill of Rights, a landmark set of laws providing protections to homeowners facing foreclosure.
In her speech, Harris credited the group’s success in overturning “the most discriminatory aspects” of Arizona’s “show me your papers bill.” She recognized how UnidosUS helped register more than 120,000 new voters in the 2020 election.
Roaring applause came from the audience when she referenced the administration’s commitment to immigration reform and encouraged Congress to create a path to citizenship. But Harris received lighter applause when she sought to navigate support for abortion rights with opposition to the procedure from the Catholic Church and the Catholic religious heritage of many Latinos.
“On this issue, let us be clear. One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree that the government should not be telling her what to do with her body,” Harris said.
Harris’ visit was an extension of the administration’s all-in effort to brand the nation’s economic improvement as “Bidenomics,” which the president unveiled in Chicago at the end of June.
Before Harris’ arrival, the White House issued a statement noting “our economy has added 13.2 million jobs, the unemployment rate has remained under 4% for the longest stretch in more than 50 years, inflation has fallen to the lowest level in more than two years, and the share of working-age Americans in the workforce is as high as it’s been in 20 years.”
This is the second of three stops Harris will make to Chicago this summer and is part of her campaign to push for job growth among Black and Latino workers ahead of the coming election.
She came to the South Side a little more than a week ago to deliver a tribute to the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., after he announced he was stepping down as president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, and is scheduled to attend Everytown for Gun Safety Gun Sense University on Aug. 11.
The administration’s economic push, aimed at countering Biden’s low job approval ratings heading into reelection, was assisted in Chicago with an appearance by Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who attended the UnidosUS conference and also touted White House efforts to lower prescription drug costs under the nearly year-old Inflation Reduction Act.
Since Harris’ last visit to Chicago, the vice president’s profile has risen significantly as she’s become the administration’s top critic of Republican presidential contender Ron DeSantis and laws restricting teaching of Black and gay history in Florida schools under his governorship.
Harris has lashed out at new education standards for how Black history could be taught in Florida schools, including requiring middle schoolers to be instructed that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
“They now push forward revisionist history,” Harris said. “They push propaganda. They suggest that enslaved people benefited from slavery as they insult us in an attempt to gaslight us. Well, we will not have it.”
UnidosUS has 24 affiliated community-based organizations in the Chicago area, according to David Castro, a communications and marketing official for the group. Every year, the conference is hosted in a different place. Castro said the large, diverse Latino community in Chicago and its welcoming attitude toward migrants makes it an important city for UnidosUS.
More than 11,000 migrants have arrived since Aug. 31, 2022, on buses from Texas, according to recent data from Office of Emergency Management and Communications spokesperson Mary May.
Before departing Chicago, Harris attended a reelection fundraiser hosted by former Obama White House social secretary and Black Opal Beauty CEO Desiree Rogers that included Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, Mayor Brandon Johnson, U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and Illinois Supreme Court Justice Joy Cunningham. The amount of money raised was not disclosed.
