2019-2021 Town Halls: on Immigration

Joe Biden: First thing I'll do is send Congress an immigration bill

Pete Buttigieg: Biblical "welcoming the stranger" means immigrants

Beto O`Rourke: Why do we check for HIV at the border and no other diseases?

O'ROURKE: You're right that there is discrimination against our fellow Americans, as well as discrimination against those who are coming to this country. I think about asylum seekers, families who are separated based on the HIV status of a single family member. We don't do that for families who come here with the flu or other health care challenges right now in this country. We've singled out a population in America. And end the discrimination against those who have HIV in America today.

Beto O`Rourke: Don't turn away asylum seekers who return home to face death

O'ROURKE: We no longer recognize this as a valid claim for asylum, though we know that when we turn people back to their country of origin, where they face persecution, they often face certain death. We've got to make sure that we welcome all those who have literally no other place to go to and retake our place as the indispensable country in the world again, setting the moral example so we can exert the moral leadership across the world and make this a cornerstone of our foreign policy. In fact, I'm going to have a full-time person in the State Department who works with other countries to advocate for the full human rights of their citizens, as well. But we won't wait on those countries to change. If someone needs to come here to seek shelter or asylum or refuge, we are going to welcome them now.

Tom Steyer: Trump's border policy is a crime against humanity

STEYER: What we've seen from ICE in terms of inhumanity, this is a perfect example, but it's not the only example. I think it's absolutely critical for the USA to treat people in a humane and decent fashion. It's very obvious that this president and this administration has chosen to not only break the international laws in their treatment of asylum-seekers, but to break the basic laws of humanity. When I think about why I started the "Need to Impeach campaign" two years ago--yeah, he's a criminal; he more than has earned impeachment; but it goes much beyond this, and it goes to exactly this kind of issue. The president of the United States committing crimes against humanity like this, in our name, is something that we should end right now, certainly the first day of my presidency.

Pete Buttigieg: There's a consensus on immigration if we have the will

We know the outlines of a comprehensive immigration reform -- a pathway to citizenship for undocumented people in this country; a level of protection for DREAMers; a set of reforms to clear up the bureaucracy and the backlogs in the lawful immigration system, which is how my father became a U.S. citizen; and reasonable measures on border security.

Marianne Williamson: Need to examine how US policy created border crisis

We need to look deeply at American foreign policy in Latin America and how we have contributed to situations where there was level of despair because too often in our foreign policy, just like in our domestic, our government has done more to be supporting short-term profits for major corporate interests than people.