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Martin O`Malley on ImmigrationDemocrat |
O'MALLEY: No, what I would say is this is: I called for America to accept the 65,000 refugees we were asked to accept. And if this humanitarian crisis increases, we should accept more.
Q: So the idea of a halt or a pause?
O'MALLEY: There are wider vulnerabilities than when it comes to refugees. I met recently with some members of the and the wait times are a year, 18 months, 24 months. There is a pretty excruciating process that refugees go through. We need to invest more in terms of the other sort of visas and the other sort of waivers. The sort of genocide and brutality that victims like the Chaldean Christian communities are suffering, these are not the perpetrators. We need to be the nation whose enduring symbol is the Statue of Liberty, and we need to act like the great country we are, according to our values.
O'MALLEY: We've actually been focusing on border security to the exclusion of talking about comprehensive immigration reform. In fact, if more border security--and more and more deportations-- were going to bring our Republican brothers and sisters to the table, it would have happened long ago. The truth of the matter is, net immigration from Mexico last year was zero. Fact check me. Go ahead. Check it out. But the truth of the matter is, if we want wages to go up, we've got to get 11 million of our neighbors out of off the book shadow economy, and into the full light of an American economy. That's what our parents and grandparents always did. That's what we need to do as a nation. Our symbol is the Statue of Liberty. It is not a barbed wire fence.
CLINTON: It is a fact that the net immigration from Mexico and South has basically zeroed out.
CLINTON: Well, I want to make sure every child gets health care. I want to open up the opportunity for immigrants to be able to buy into the exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. To go beyond that--it would be very difficult to administer
O'MALLEY: I think what you've heard is some of the old thinking on immigration reform, and that's why it's gridlocked. 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 am for a generous, compassionate America that says we're all in this together.
OnTheIssues note: DACA is "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals"; DAPA is "Deferred Action for Parents of Americans"; both would prevent deportation of illegal immigrants.
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.
O'MALLEY: And a 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.
"I join with my fellow governors across the country in urging the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the common sense immigration legislation recently approved by the Senate. This is the right thing to do for our national security, the well-being of our workforce, and also for job creation and the U.S. economy.
"If we want better results we have to make better choices. In Maryland, we passed the DREAM Act--and we became the first State to successfully defend it at the ballot box--because in an Innovation Economy, we create more jobs when we expand opportunity."