Washington (CNN) Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said Sunday that her previous controversial stances on immigration "certainly weren't empathetic and they were not kind."

Gillibrand, who announced last week that she was entering the 2020 presidential race, has come under fire for her previous positions since her announcement.

While serving as a representative from New York, Gillibrand opposed "amnesty for illegal immigrants" and voted to increase funding for US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to work with local law enforcement on deportations. As a senator, her positions on the issue are more progressive and include calling for the abolition of the agency and for it to "reimagine" having a "very different mission."

"(My positions) certainly weren't empathetic and they were not kind and I did not think about suffering in other people's lives," GIllibrand told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union." "And one thing I did 10 years ago when I became senator and was going to represent 20 million people across our state, I recognized that a lot of places in my state were different and I needed to understand what those constituents needed too."

The 2020 presidential hopeful told Tapper that in this effort, she visited Brooklyn and met with Democratic Rep. Nydia Velázquez.

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