Did Kamala Harris's mother lie in her immigration application by saying she only had one child when she really had two at the time she applied for her visa? No, that's not true: Harris's mother had only one child -- Kamala -- at the time she filed the petition. The full document shows that Harris's mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, filed it on January 18, 1967, which was before her second child was born on January 30, 1967. The document used as proof in a social media post is only one page of the multi-page notice of approval or revalidation of visa petition.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) where it was published on X, formerly known as Twitter, on August 15, 2024. It opened:
Did Kamala Harris's @KamalaHQ mother commit immigration fraud? And is Kamala Harris trying to force her dead mother into all of her campaign speeches as a way to normalize immigration fraud and illegal immigration?
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Aug 26 16:29:26 2024 UTC)
The document shown in the social media post is taken from Shyamala Gopalan Harris's petition for residency in the United States. A Google search (archived here) for keywords returned the documents on the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) website (archived here). USCIS confirmed to Lead Stories via email on August 25, 2024, that the 154-page document is found on their website.
Kamala was born on October 20, 1964, as Britannica states (archived here). Her sister Maya Harris was born on January 30, 1967 (archived here), which means she was not born at the time her mother filed the petition. Kamala was her mother's only child at the time.
The document in the social media post -- page 33 of 154, as seen here -- shows that Kamala's mother wrote that she only had "one" child at the time. This page has a date of August 21, 1967. This is the date of the "Notice of Approval or Revalidation of Visa Petition," not the date it was filed. That information can be found on the previous page, 32 of 154. This document asked for "number of children" and Shyamala did not note that she was pregnant at the time. Here is a screenshot of page 33 with the August 21, 1967, date and where Kamala's mother wrote "one" for children:
(Source: USCIS website screenshot taken on Mon Aug 26 16:33:12 2024 UTC)
This is a screenshot of the previous page, page 32, which is the "Notice of Approval or Revalidation of Visa Petition," and this document shows the "Date Petition filed" as "1-18-67." This is prior to Kamala's mother giving birth to her sister Maya on January 30, 1967. These documents were publicly available at the time the social media post was made on X:
(Source: USCIS website screenshot taken on Mon Aug 26 16:35:44 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories reached out to the Harris campaign for comment and will update the story when a response is received.
Other Lead Stories fact checks on claims concerning Kamala Harris can be found here and on claims regarding the 2024 election can be found here.
