Bill Foster On Trump’s Immigration Policies: ‘This Glee At Human Misery Bothers Me The Most’

yesterday

During a town hall event on Tuesday, Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL) spoke about the Trump administration’s approach to immigration issues.

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Transcript

00:00And the second part of that was related to immigration and housing and the situation that we're seeing with the Trump administration and immigration.

00:08What is your position?

00:09Well, you know, again, it's this sort of, this glee at human misery that bothers me the most.

00:16You know, and this is a tough, a tough, I've been wrestling with all the 15 years that I've been in this crazy business.

00:22You know, we came so, so close to passing comprehensive immigration reform back in 2013.

00:27When the Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform.

00:30And the House, I was working with Luis Gutierrez, who was in the House at the time.

00:35And we were sort of tag teaming trying to get Republicans to promise they would vote for it if we were allowed to vote for it.

00:42And we were never allowed to vote.

00:44So for something like a year and a half, this bill was passed by the Senate and waiting to be voted on.

00:50And had John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, just gotten up any day and listened to the Pope,

00:56who was not ambiguous about comprehensive immigration reform, and brought it up for a vote, it would have passed by 30 votes.

01:03And that, the bargain that's in there, it's important to remember because that bargain is still there.

01:08Alright, part of it comes to the recognition that we cannot, we cannot open our borders.

01:16We just can't. Because if we open our borders to anyone who wants to come the next day,

01:21our, you know, half the population of the world will be here.

01:24So we need an orderly system to do that, and we need the rule of law.

01:27And, and so, so that's, you have to start by recognizing that.

01:33And then you have to start by saying, okay, we need reasonable quotas.

01:37Because what doesn't work is if you have a lot more jobs for immigrants than you have slots in your immigration system,

01:45somebody's got to cheat, or you're going to have, you know, or the economy won't work.

01:50And so you fix that, and he was fixing this bill by realistic quotas.

01:55And then, and then you get to the very important issue, and very sensitive issue,

01:59of people that have been here for a long time, decades, and have been contributing to the economy,

02:05that they came here by breaking the rules, alright?

02:09And so what, and the deal that was in that bill, which I think is still available today,

02:13is that you pay back taxes if you haven't been paying taxes.

02:16You pay a fine for coming in here illegally.

02:18You are given a tough but fair path to citizenship, okay?

02:23And, and that, that's it.

02:25You have real enforcement to be verified, so you can no longer just hire people who are not legal to work here.

02:32That's the other side of the coin to get Republicans to vote for it.

02:35It would be a return to the rule of law, okay?

02:38And, and, and a path to citizenship, and you'd have very strong, very strong background checks.

02:45Because Democrats and Republicans agree that people with serious criminal histories

02:49should not be allowed to stay in the country.

02:51And, and what's interesting, when we were explaining this,

02:54is that, you know, these seven or so points that I just went over,

02:57that the Republicans say the exact same thing, but they say them in different order.

03:01That when Republicans go through those seven points,

03:04they start with, all of them, the hard-ass points.

03:07You know, all the real rule of law, we can't have criminals in, all this sort of stuff.

03:10But at the end, they acknowledge that these are human beings that just want good lives for their children.

03:15Democrats do the opposite.

03:16We start with the, the acknowledgement of humanity,

03:20and then we end, well, of course, we don't want criminals in our country.

03:24The exact same points in the opposite order.

03:26And for whatever reason, the, the American public,

03:29if you start with the hard-ass points and end with the soft ones,

03:32it's 40 points better in the approval.

03:35But if it gets you to the same point, if it gets you to the same policy,

03:42I'm, I'm worried. I will say them in imaginary numbers,

03:46if that's what it takes to get, to get this thing to pass.

03:49But I just want to give a little bit of hope, because there is,

03:52in a broad spectrum of the American public,

03:55an agreement that can get us out of this mess.

03:58And we just have to find out a thread that needle.

Bill Foster On Trump’s Immigration Policies: ‘This Glee At Human Misery Bothers Me The Most’

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