Jonathan McIntosh
Immigrant rights march for amnesty in downtown Los Angeles, California on May Day, 2006
Immigration didn’t get a lot of airtime in Tuesday’s first Democratic debate of the 2016 season, but it did provoke an interesting exchange. Immigration courts, however, didn’t get mentioned; that’s another good reason for readers to support our pending investigation of those bodies.
See the transcript below, courtesy of the Washington Post‘s coverage of the CNN telecast:
COOPER: Senator Sanders, I want to bring it over to Juan Carlos Lopez from CNN en Espanol. We’re obviously in Nevada. It’s had the highest percentage of undocumented immigrants of any state in the country as of last year. Juan Carlos?
LOPEZ: Gracias, Anderson. Senator Sanders, in 2013, you voted for immigration reform. But in 2007, when Democrats controlled Congress and the Bush White House was onboard, you voted against it. Why should Latino voters trust you now when you left them at the altar at the moment when reform was very close?
SANDERS: I didn’t leave anybody at the altar. I voted against that piece of legislation because it had guest-worker provisions in it which the Southern Poverty Law Center talked about being semi-slavery. Guest workers are coming in, they’re working under terrible conditions, but if they stand up for their rights, they’re thrown out of the country. I was not the only progressive to vote against that legislation for that reason. Tom Harkin, a very good friend of Hillary Clinton’s and mine, one of the leading labor advocates, also voted against that.
LOPEZ: Tom Harkin isn’t running for president. You are.
SANDERS: I know that. But point being is that progressives did vote against that for that reason. My view right now — and always has been — is that when you have 11 million undocumented people in this country, we need comprehensive immigration reform, we need a path toward citizenship, we need to take people out of the shadows.
O’MALLEY: And Juan Carlos — Juan Carlos…
LOPEZ: Secretary Clinton — Secretary Clinton, Governor O’Malley wants to open up Obamacare to millions of undocumented immigrants and their children, including almost 90,000 people right here in Nevada. Do you?
CLINTON: Well, first of all, I want to make sure every child gets health care. That’s why I helped to create the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and I want to support states that are expanding health care and including undocumented children and others. I want to open up the opportunity for immigrants to be able to buy in to the exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. I think to go beyond that, as I understand what Governor O’Malley has recommended, so that they would get the same subsidies. I think that is — it raises so many issues. It would be very difficult to administer, it needs to be part of a comprehensive immigration reform, when we finally do get to it.
LOPEZ: Governor O’Malley?
O’MALLEY: Juan Carlos, I think what you’ve heard up here is some of the old thinking on immigration reform, and that’s why it’s gridlocked. We need to understand that our country is stronger in every generation by the arrival of new American immigrants. That is why I have put out a policy for comprehensive immigration reform, that is why I would go further than President Obama has on DACA, and DAPA. I mean, we are a nation of immigrants, we are made stronger by immigrants. Do you think for a second that simply because somebody’s standing in a broken que on naturalization they’re not going to go to the hospital, and that care isn’t going to fall on to our insurance rates? I am for a generous, compassionate America that says we’re all in this together. We need comprehensive …immigration reform. It’ll make wages go up in America $250 for every year…
LOPEZ: Senator Webb, do you support the undocumented immigrants getting Obamacare?
WEBB: I wouldn’t have a problem with that. Let me start by saying my wife is an immigrant. She was a refugee, her family escaped from Vietnam on a boat– her entire extended family, after the communists took over, when hundreds of thousands of people were out there and thousands of them were dying. Went to two refugee camps, she never spoke English in her home, and she ended, as I said, graduating from Cornell Law School. That’s not only American dream, that’s a value that we have with a good immigration system in place. No country has — is a country without defining its borders. We need to resolve this issue. I actually introduced an amendment in the 2007 immigration bill… giving a pathway to citizenship to those people who had come here, and put down their roots, and met as a series of standards… I introduced that in 2007 — We need a comprehensive reform, and we need to be able to define our borders.
COOPER: Secretary Clinton?
CLINTON: I want to follow up because I think underneath Juan Carlos’ important questions, there is such a difference between everything you’re hearing here on this stage, and what we hear from the Republicans demonize hard-working immigrants who have insulted them. You know, I came to Las Vegas in, I think, May. Early may. Met with a group of DREAMers, I wish everybody in America could meet with this young people, to hear their stories, to know their incredible talent, their determination, and that’s why I would go further…than even the executive orders that President Obama has signed when I’m president.
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, let me ask you. Two of your rivals from your left, Governor O’Malley, and Senator Sanders, want to provide instate college tuition to undocumented immigrants. Where do you stand on that?
CLINTON: My plan would support any state that takes that position, and would work with those states and encourage more states to do the same thing.
COOPER: So, on the record, you believe that undocumented immigrants should get instate college tuition.
CLINTON: If their states agree, then we want more states to do the same thing.
COOPER: Governor O’Malley?
O’MALLEY: Anderson, we actually did this in my state of Maryland. We passed a state version of the DREAM Act…And a lot of the xenophobes, the immigrant haters like some that we’ve heard like, Donald Trump, that carnival barker in the Republican party… Tried to mischaracterize it as free tuition for illegal immigrants. But, we took our case to the people when it was petitioned to referendum, and we won with 58 percent of the vote. The more our children learn, the more they will earn, and that’s true of children who have yet to be naturalized…but will become American citizens…
One thought on “What the Democrats Said About Immigration in Their 1st Debate”
If you voted
for King Obama, then you could be at a crossroads in deciding on voting for a
Democrat in 2016 and thereby will be adding $$ billions of more dollars to the
huge $$19 trillion deficit, ($$10 Trillion applied to Obama) and all the welfare treats that they pass out
to the 11 to 30 million illegal aliens and the disregard for growing needs of our Veterans. Then consider the ‘Freeloaders’ the spongers who have become a
virus, to live off other peoples money. Obama’s government pays it all, without
any restrictions or very rarely any inspections. Where does your tax dollars go, fraudulent
child credits of the progeny of illegal aliens using stolen Social Security
numbers from the deceased, our soldiers abroad or even the new born babies of
American citizens.
What do we
get in return–NOTHING, because they never paid into the system whereas
taxpayers have contributed since they first started work. There is a special
name for these children ‘Anchor Babies’? What does that mean, their illegal parents
smuggle or birth their offspring here, so they are unlikely to be deported. The
cost is becoming unpredictable as it rises every year? Statistics are
inaccurate because the federal, state and municipal governments hid it mostly
from prying eyes. Where will it end under the Democrats, Liberals, the
Republicans–NEVER–as it intentionally grows fainter and our immigration laws
end up in the trash. Who are to blame the Cheap labor purveyor in the GOP and
the Democrats more voters–illegal or lawful for there cause?
I am no
longer listening to the teleprompter career class in both parties, as the
majority in both debates try to outshine each other. I am all for somebody who
will turn America around. Donald Trumps billions of
dollars doesn’t cause me to flinch, but his hard nosed, aggressive refusal in
taking secret cash from big corporate donors or the mega money machine that
influences United States politics does? He is a winner; rough in his speech,
but directly to the point. Nothing hidden behind the masquerade of the
Clinton’s, Bush or Bernie Sanders or those who strive for greater power. Hillary
Clinton is unworthy to gain access to the highest office in the land; her
monetary tactics must be approached with suspicion? A foundation taking foreign
contributions and just as plausible with the money given to prospective
candidates in the Presidential race, the donors all want something back in
return. America frantically needs a neutral voice
and that is Trump who cannot be touched by intimidation, money and inducement.
With Jeb
Bush and Hillary Clinton they will grant a pathway to citizenship through
amnesty; free Obamcare and as Bernie Sanders has proclaimed free college
education for everybody and that means illegal aliens. California Governor
Jerry Brown, a reject from the early 60’s is issuing drivers licenses to
illegal aliens and soon access to Obamacare when the Golden State has phenomenal deficits. He is
preoccupied in granting foreigners that have violated the law, the same
privileges as citizens. Another stealth
design for that state is the Motor Voter law, as illegal aliens collect this
state sponsored drivers license can register to vote? California, a Liberal state along with Oregon has a deliberate advocate
tactic to get illegal aliens to vote.
Think it
does not effect other states–think again? Americans keep sitting on your hands
and saying nothing. By not contacting your House Representative or Senate
members and speaking out. Giving illegal aliens drivers licenses, attorney
licenses and running for local committees will eventually lead to giving
the vote
and we will have a one party system, not indifferent to Russia, China where government controls your every
move? Obama has already soiled our Constitution with overreach preferential
treatment to criminal illegal aliens and has done zero to repealing Sanctuary City ordinances–completely in opposition
to federal law. The outcome is the death of citizens by pariah illegal aliens whose activities
remain intangible, until a unbiased media outlet publicized the slaughter, such
as the killing in extreme Liberalized San Francisco.
Instead of
the pandering to the unknown numbers of illegal aliens squatting here, we
should assign that money to welfare of our own people. To reiterate every state
should have several asylums for the criminally insane. Lockups as the British
penitentiary on the moors, an open region with marsh and quicksand, with one
road in, and one road out as Broadmoor.
Escape is impossible? Mentally
disturbed people are to blame for the gun violence, not the guns? Criminals
will always have access to guns and honest citizens need to be armed, to
protect house and home.
But in the
debates I have heard hardly a word from all politicians about our suffering Vets?
In the latest Democratic clown debate, they cannot escape the rationale that
all three candidates of two Professional politicians and one Leninist
‘Outsider’ tend to pander to foreign nationals than our military. Trump does
and he will build on the ailing service personnel of low numbers, with emphasis
on recruitment, new aircraft, ships and heavy armaments the likes of what our
enemies have never seen before–for our security at home and abroad? Trump will
endeavor to make the Veterans Administration accountable for wrongdoing and a
100 percent better concern, instead of the desperate need for charities to care
for the maimed and disturbed from battle fatigue.
This is why
Donald Trumps–wall–from when the voters proclaiming him president? If its
high enough we will see the tracks illegal aliens used like pack animals carrying
packs of elicit drugs through fearful landowners property along the border
vanishing. That the policing of the border will be much easier on a fast roadway
by the US Border Patrol, and the infrequent aid of local police authority that will
be much safer from the drug cartels and that regions in our OWN country will be
accessible to US citizens once again. The incessant coverage by unmanned drones
will immediately detect any movement along the wall, before whole groups of
more poverty struggling across the concertina razor wire.
Those
younger illegal aliens will not find it so
simple under the new immigration laws that were not supported by previous
Presidents to find work. Trump will sign into law, through executive order if
need be MANDATORY E-VERIFY. That not only cuts-off jobs, but imposes serious
punishments for illegal aliens and the business owners who hire them. no jobs, they
are on there way home, from whatever country?
Two websites
of interest: Judicial Watch and One America News Network. Pass this on.