Nikki Haley on Immigration

Border crossers are families, not criminals: but e-Verify

Q [to HALEY]: Gov. DeSantis and also Donald Trump are attacking you for that comment in 2015 in which you said undocumented immigrants should not be called "criminals." The full context is you said, We don't need to talk about them as criminals. They're not. They're families that want a better life, and they're desperate to get here." Do you still feel that way?

HALEY: When I was governor, we passed the toughest illegal immigration law in the country. In passing that toughest illegal immigration law in the country, we passed E-Verify, which I want to take national, which is where businesses have to prove that the people they hire are in this country legally. I passed it within six months of being governor. Ron didn't pass it for five years. He only waited to pass it when he decided to run for president.

Admit immigrants on merit, not on random quotas

End incentives like temporary protected status

Nikki Haley: What I said is all of the 7 or 8 million illegals that have come under Biden's watch absolutely have to go back. We have to stop the incentive of what's bringing them over here in the first place. Biden just gave temporary protective status to 500,000 Venezuelans. That's a half a million social security cards; half a million driver's licenses. And I know from my time at the U.N., the first thing they do is pick up the phone and say, "We came over, come on over." You have to go and deport these people, so they know it can't happen again. For those that have been here longer than that, we've got to start seeing, who is it? How long have they been here? Have they been vetted? Have they paid taxes? Have they been working? And figure out who else is out there.

Restrict terrorist immigration, not Muslim immigration

(Trump on video): No longer will we allow dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots, and maniacs to get residency in our country. We're not going to let them stay here. If you empathize with radical Islamic, terrorists and extremists, you're disqualified.

Q: Do you support President Trump's plan for ideological screening?

Nikki Haley: Well, I don't think that you have a straight-up Muslim ban, as much as you look at the countries that have terrorist activity that want to hurt Americans. You can ban those people from those countries, that's the way we should look at it is which countries are a threat to us. What worries me the most are those that came from Iran, from Yemen, from Lebanon, those areas where they say "Death to America." That's where you want to be careful. It's not about a religion, it's about a fact that certain countries are dangerous and are threats to us.

We will defund sanctuary cities once and for all

Instead of catch and release, let's go to catch and deport

Give local police power to check immigrations status

Refugee ban: What we did was take a pause

HALEY: I am the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. I believe that the fabric of America is legal immigration. This is not about not wanting people in. This is about keeping the terrorists out. We should never ban based on religion, I mean, period. We should never. And I don't think that's what this is. We will never close our doors in the United States. We won't. But what we did do was take a pause.

FactCheck: US does have history of religion-based exclusion

• Until 1828, Jews were disallowed from voting in Maryland.
• In 1838, all Mormons were expelled from Missouri by the Governor's order.
• The Immigration Act of 1924 restricted immigration from Southern & Eastern Europe (which are majority Catholic) in favor of Northern & Western Europe (which are majority Protestant).
• In 1939, the S.S. St. Louis, carrying 908 Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany, was denied entrance to the US.

Immigrants have come for generations to live the dream

My story is really not much different from millions of other Americans. Immigrants have been coming to our shores for generations to live the dream that is America. They wanted better for their children than for themselves. That remains the dream of all of us, and in this country we have seen time and again that that dream is achievable.

Don't follow the siren call of anti-immigration anger

No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country.

At the same time, that does not mean we just flat out open our borders. We can't do that. We cannot continue to allow immigrants to come here illegally. And in this age of terrorism, we must not let in refugees whose intentions cannot be determined.

Protect our borders, our sovereignty, and our citizens

I have no doubt that if we act with proper focus, we can protect our borders, our sovereignty and our citizens, all while remaining true to America's noblest legacies.

Audit businesses to see if using E-Verify

The problem is, for E-Verify to work government has to know whether employers are actually using it. Obama's Department of Homeland Security told us we could no longer audit businesses to check if they were using E-Verify. The privacy of the people being checked, they said, would be compromised if we asked for proof from businesses. Out of the more than 6,000 businesses they had checked, over 2,000 violations had been found. But no more. Now the federal government was saying that we couldn't use the best and most efficient means we had to enforce our law.

My goal wasn't to overburden employers with rules and regulations. I just wanted to use the easiest and least costly way, to ensure we weren't employing illegals, and that was E-Verify.

It's not a racial issue; it's about the rule of law

I am the proud daughter of legal immigrants--emphasis on the LEGAL. My parents played by the rules and waited their turn. They are offended--as I am--by those who try to backdoor the system and come here illegally. When we allow this debate to be about race, we lose sight of the principle that is really at the heart of it: the rule of law. We are a nation of immigrants, and we're proud of it. But we are first and foremost a nation of laws. If we give up being a nation of laws, we give up everything this country was founded on.

Charge 1% foreign wire fee;& police check immigration status

• It is a felony for a person who has remained in the US in violation of law to conceal themselves from detection or to conspire to conceal that person from state or federal authorities.
• A law enforcement officer, when stopping a person for some other criminal offense, must determine the immigration status of that person if the officer suspects that the person is illegally in the US.
• If a prisoner who is an alien unlawfully present in the US completes the prisoner's sentence of incarceration, the keeper of the jail shall notify the US Department of Homeland Security [or ICE agency] and shall securely transport the prisoner to a federal facility [for deportation].
• Implement a fee on wire transfers to foreign countries: a 1% fee with a minimum of $5.

Status:Bill passed Senate, 22-14-0; passed House 65-39-20; signed by Governor, June 27, 2011.

Co-sponsored toughest standard of immigration enforcement