Ben Carson https://www.bencarson.com/issues/immigration
Hillary Clinton https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/immigration-reform/
Ted Cruz https://www.tedcruz.org/issues/secure-the-border/
Roque De La Fuente https://www.rocky2016.com/my-pledge/
John Kasich https://johnkasich.com/immigration/
Marco Rubio https://marcorubio.com/issues-2/marco-rubio-immigration-plan-border-security-legal/
Bernie Sanders https://berniesanders.com/a-fair-and-humane-immigration-policy/
Donald Trump https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/immigration-reform
Ben Carson https://www.bencarson.com/issues/immigration
America is the beacon of freedom and hope to the world. Over the centuries, immigrants of all stripes have come onto our shores, inspired by our ideals and seeking opportunities available only in this country. We have opened our doors to the world, and the world has in turn shaped our culture and heritage and helped create the rich diversity that is one of America’s greatest strengths.
Yet, I believe, as Teddy Roosevelt did, that anyone who comes to this country and wants to be a part of it must accept our laws, our Constitution and our values. We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a sovereign nation of laws. Our sovereignty demands that we protect our borders and make decisions for ourselves, including whom to welcome onto our soil. Our rule of law requires that we uphold the laws – including immigration laws – that the American people have duly enacted.
Dr. Ben Carson talks about Syrian refugees
Currently, our immigration system is broken. Regrettably, our national debate on immigration is characterized by racial pandering and political giveaways. Common-sense solutions are regularly branded as racist, xenophobic and mean-spirited, while prized ideals – such as citizenship – are offered by politicians as handouts in radical attempts to alter our demographics and pave the way to future electoral victories. All the while, terrorists and criminals are doing everything they can to infiltrate our country.
We must do better to protect the homeland while continuing the tradition of welcoming new Americans. Legal immigration will always be a valued pillar of our society, but we need to restore the rule of law and keep this country safe and sovereign.
As president, I will repair our immigration system and do the following:
1. secure the border,
2. implement sensible admission and removal procedures,
3. solve the problem of the existing illegal immigrant population in the United States,
4. address legal immigration and
5. restore the concept of the American melting pot.
Read my plan, which describes how I will accomplish these objectives.
Donald Trump https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/immigration-reform
IMMIGRATION REFORM THAT WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
The three core principles of Donald J. Trump's immigration plan
When politicians talk about “immigration reform” they mean: amnesty, cheap labor and open borders. The Schumer-Rubio immigration bill was nothing more than a giveaway to the corporate patrons who run both parties.
Real immigration reform puts the needs of working people first – not wealthy globetrotting donors. We are the only country in the world whose immigration system puts the needs of other nations ahead of our own. That must change. Here are the three core principles of real immigration reform:
1. A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.
2. A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced.
3. A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.
Make Mexico Pay For The Wall
For many years, Mexico’s leaders have been taking advantage of the United States by using illegal immigration to export the crime and poverty in their own country (as well as in other Latin American countries). They have even published pamphletson how to illegally immigrate to the United States. The costs for the United States have been extraordinary: U.S. taxpayers have been asked to pick up hundreds of billions in healthcare costs, housing costs, education costs, welfare costs, etc. Indeed, the annual cost of free tax credits alone paid to illegal immigrants quadrupled to $4.2 billion in 2011. The effects on jobseekers have also been disastrous, and black Americans have been particularly harmed.
The impact in terms of crime has been tragic. In recent weeks, the headlines have been covered with cases of criminals who crossed our border illegally only to go on to commit horrific crimes against Americans. Most recently, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, with a long arrest record, is charged with breaking into a 64 year-old woman’s home, crushing her skull and eye sockets with a hammer, raping her, and murdering her. The Police Chief in Santa Maria says the “blood trail” leads straight to Washington.
In 2011, the Government Accountability Office found that there were a shocking 3 million arrests attached to the incarcerated alien population, including tens of thousands of violent beatings, rapes and murders.
Meanwhile, Mexico continues to make billions on not only our bad trade deals but also relies heavily on the billions of dollars in remittances sent from illegal immigrants in the United States back to Mexico ($22 billion in 2013 alone).
In short, the Mexican government has taken the United States to the cleaners. They are responsible for this problem, and they must help pay to clean it up.
The cost of building a permanent border wall pales mightily in comparison to what American taxpayers spend every single year on dealing with the fallout of illegal immigration on their communities, schools and unemployment offices.
Mexico must pay for the wall and, until they do, the United States will, among other things: impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages; increase fees on all temporary visas issued to Mexican CEOs and diplomats (and if necessary cancel them); increase fees on all border crossing cards – of which we issue about 1 million to Mexican nationals each year (a major source of visa overstays); increase fees on all NAFTA worker visas from Mexico (another major source of overstays); and increase fees at ports of entry to the United States from Mexico [Tariffs and foreign aid cuts are also options]. We will not be taken advantage of anymore.
Defend The Laws And Constitution Of The United States
America will only be great as long as America remains a nation of laws that lives according to the Constitution. No one is above the law. The following steps will return to the American people the safety of their laws, which politicians have stolen from them:
Triple the number of ICE officers. As the President of the ICE Officers’ Council explained in Congressional testimony: “Only approximately 5,000 officers and agents within ICE perform the lion’s share of ICE’s immigration mission…Compare that to the Los Angeles Police Department at approximately 10,000 officers. Approximately 5,000 officers in ICE cover 50 states, Puerto Rico and Guam, and are attempting to enforce immigration law against 11 million illegal aliens already in the interior of the United States. Since 9-11, the U.S. Border Patrol has tripled in size, while ICE’s immigration enforcement arm, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), has remained at relatively the same size.” This will be funded by accepting the recommendation of the Inspector General for Tax Administration and eliminating tax credit payments to illegal immigrants.
Nationwide e-verify. This simple measure will protect jobs for unemployed Americans.
Mandatory return of all criminal aliens. The Obama Administration has released 76,000 aliens from its custody with criminal convictions since 2013 alone. All criminal aliens must be returned to their home countries, a process which can be aided by canceling any visas to foreign countries which will not accept their own criminals, and making it a separate and additional crime to commit an offense while here illegally.
Detention—not catch-and-release. Illegal aliens apprehended crossing the border must be detained until they are sent home, no more catch-and-release.
Defund sanctuary cities. Cut-off federal grants to any city which refuses to cooperate with federal law enforcement.
Enhanced penalties for overstaying a visa. Millions of people come to the United States on temporary visas but refuse to leave, without consequence. This is a threat to national security. Individuals who refuse to leave at the time their visa expires should be subject to criminal penalties; this will also help give local jurisdictions the power to hold visa overstays until federal authorities arrive. Completion of a visa tracking system – required by law but blocked by lobbyists – will be necessary as well.
Cooperate with local gang task forces. ICE officers should accompany local police departments conducting raids of violent street gangs like MS-13 and the 18th street gang, which have terrorized the country. All illegal aliens in gangs should be apprehended and deported. Again, quoting Chris Crane: “ICE Officers and Agents are forced to apply the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Directive, not to children in schools, but to adult inmates in jails. If an illegal-alien inmate simply claims eligibility, ICE is forced to release the alien back into the community. This includes serious criminals who have committed felonies, who have assaulted officers, and who prey on children…ICE officers should be required to place detainers on every illegal alien they encounter in jails and prisons, since these aliens not only violated immigration laws, but then went on to engage in activities that led to their arrest by police; ICE officers should be required to issue Notices to Appear to all illegal aliens with criminal convictions, DUI convictions, or a gang affiliation; ICE should be working with any state or local drug or gang task force that asks for such assistance.”
End birthright citizenship. This remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration. By a 2:1 margin, voters say it’s the wrong policy, including Harry Reid who said “no sane country” would give automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.
Put American Workers First
Decades of disastrous trade deals and immigration policies have destroyed our middle class. Today, nearly 40% of black teenagers are unemployed. Nearly 30% of Hispanic teenagers are unemployed. For black Americans without high school diplomas, the bottom has fallen out: more than 70% were employed in 1960, compared to less than 40% in 2000. Across the economy, the percentage of adults in the labor force has collapsed to a level not experienced in generations. As CBS news wrote in a piece entitled “America’s incredible shrinking middle class”: “If the middle-class is the economic backbone of America, then the country is developing osteoporosis.”
The influx of foreign workers holds down salaries, keeps unemployment high, and makes it difficult for poor and working class Americans – including immigrants themselves and their children – to earn a middle class wage. Nearly half of all immigrants and their US-born children currently live in or near poverty, including more than 60 percent of Hispanic immigrants. Every year, we voluntarily admit another 2 million new immigrants, guest workers, refugees, and dependents, growing our existing all-time historic record population of 42 million immigrants. We need to control the admission of new low-earning workers in order to: help wages grow, get teenagers back to work, aid minorities’ rise into the middle class, help schools and communities falling behind, and to ensure our immigrant members of the national family become part of the American dream.
Additionally, we need to stop giving legal immigrant visas to people bent on causing us harm. From the 9/11 hijackers, to the Boston Bombers, and many others, our immigration system is being used to attack us. The President of the immigration caseworkers union declared in a statement on ISIS: “We've become the visa clearinghouse for the world.”
Here are some additional specific policy proposals for long-term reform:
Increase prevailing wage for H-1Bs. We graduate two times more Americans with STEM degrees each year than find STEM jobs, yet as much as two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B program. More than half of H-1B visas are issued for the program's lowest allowable wage level, and more than eighty percent for its bottom two. Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give these coveted entry-level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant workers in the U.S., instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas. This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities.
Requirement to hire American workers first. Too many visas, like the H-1B, have no such requirement. In the year 2015, with 92 million Americans outside the workforce and incomes collapsing, we need companies to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed. Petitions for workers should be mailed to the unemployment office, not USCIS.
End welfare abuse. Applicants for entry to the United States should be required to certify that they can pay for their own housing, healthcare and other needs before coming to the U.S.
Jobs program for inner city youth. The J-1 visa jobs program for foreign youth will be terminated and replaced with a resume bank for inner city youth provided to all corporate subscribers to the J-1 visa program.
Refugee program for American children. Increase standards for the admission of refugees and asylum-seekers to crack down on abuses. Use the monies saved on expensive refugee programs to help place American children without parents in safer homes and communities, and to improve community safety in high crime neighborhoods in the United States.
Immigration moderation. Before any new green cards are issued to foreign workers abroad, there will be a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers. This will help reverse women's plummeting workplace participation rate, grow wages, and allow record immigration levels to subside to more moderate historical averages.
Ted Cruz https://www.tedcruz.org/issues/secure-the-border/
BORDER SECURITY IS NATIONAL SECURITY
• Border security is national security. We need to secure the border once and for all. We need to stop Obama’s amnesty and enforce the rule of law. And we need to reform legal immigration to protect American workers.
• It’s not that we don’t know how to solve illegal immigration. What is missing is the political will to get it done. As President, Ted Cruz will do what he says. He will stop illegal immigration. He will build a wall that works, triple border security, and put in place the surveillance and biometric tracking to secure the border.
• Ted Cruz will end Obama’s amnesty on day one, will end catch-and-release, increase deportations, stop sanctuary policies, and strengthen E-verify.
• In order to protect our national security and serve American workers, he will suspend and audit H-1B visas and halt any increase in legal immigration so long as American unemployment remains unacceptably high.
• Cruz led the fight in Congress to defeat the Gang of Eight amnesty bill, he has introduced strong legislation to stop illegal immigration, and he has outlined a detailed immigration plan to protect Americans.
PROVEN RECORD
• Introduced two bills to protect Americans from an influx of refugees who could be a national security risk, including legislation barring refugees from terrorist-ridden regions and legislation to recognize governors’ authority to protect the citizens in their states by rejecting to resettle refugees in their state.
• When Cruz came to the Senate in 2013, he coalesced conservatives across the country to defeat the Gang of Eight bill that failed to secure the border and would have granted amnesty to millions who came to the United States illegally.
• During the Gang of Eight fight, Cruz offered a series of amendments, including measures to prevent citizenship for those here illegally, to block illegals’ access to federal, state, or local public assistance benefits, secure the border, triple the size of the Border Patrol, and implement a biometric entry-exit system.
• Introduced Kate’s Law to establish a 5-year minimum sentence for those who illegally reenter the country.
• Introduced with Jeff Sessions the American Jobs First Act of 2015, to reform the H-1B program, curb abuse, and protect American workers.
• Proposed a number of measures to defund President Obama’s amnesty and prevent him from expanding it.
John Kasich https://johnkasich.com/immigration/
No written description pro immigration speech
Marco Rubio https://marcorubio.com/issues-2/marco-rubio-immigration-plan-border-security-legal/
How Marco Will Start Securing Our Border on Day One
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Marco has consistently advocated fixing America’s immigration system, beginning with securing our border, enforcing immigration laws in the workplace, and implementing effective visa tracking systems.
Every sovereign nation has the right to set its immigration laws and enforce them, and Marco knows first-hand that enforcing our immigration laws is not anti-immigrant.
Starting on Day One of his presidency, Marco will be focused on immigration security.
He will:
• Cancel President Obama’s unconstitutional executive orders
• Eliminate federal funding for sanctuary cities
• Deport criminal illegal aliens
• Hire 20,000 new Border Patrol agents
• Finish all 700 miles of walls on our southern border
• Implement an entry-exit visa tracking system
• Implement a mandatory eVerify system
• Install $4 billion in new cameras and sensors on the border
These priorities have only become more important in light of the threat from sophisticated terrorist groups such as ISIS attempting to exploit our legal immigrant system or cross our borders illegally. That means, for instance, that the U.S. cannot and should not accept refugees from Syria unless it is possible to vet them.
That principle will govern Marco’s approach to immigration security more generally: if we do not know who you are and why you are coming, you are not getting into America.
Of course, fixing America’s immigration system goes beyond just a serious, tough approach to border security.
Marco laid out his overall views of the issue in his 2015 book, American Dreams. Here’s what he had to say:
Winning the global competition for investment and innovation will require us to win the global competition for talent. We simply cannot remain competitive in the twenty-first century if we are unable to attract and keep the most talented people in the world.
For as long as there has been an America, we have benefited from the infusion of entrepreneurs, innovators, workers and dreamers who have come to this country from other lands. But today, at a time when so many working-class and middle-class families are struggling, it can fairly be asked: Is it possible to advocate continued immigration while at the same time fighting for an agenda to lift up the working and middle classes? Aren’t these two things at odds with each other? Well, the answer is yes—if we continue on the path we’re on.
To begin with, our immigration system itself is chaotic. Entire sectors of our southern border are not secure, creating not just an immigration problem but a serious humanitarian and national security one as well. Last summer’s crisis of thousands of unaccompanied minors entering this country proves that both our borders and our immigration system can be overwhelmed very quickly. In addition, many of our immigration laws are simply not enforced or unenforceable. For example, a significant percentage of those here illegally arrived legally, but then overstayed visas. We do not know who most of them are or where they are.
Our immigration system, designed primarily to reunite families, is an outdated relic of the last century. This system worked for much of the twentieth century, when we had no shortage of low-skill, middle-income jobs and the government safety net was still fairly limited. But today we have low to nonexistent growth, a shortage of good jobs and a massive web of needs-based programs.
No nation on earth is more generous when it comes to immigration than America. Each year about one million people permanently immigrate here legally. But when people hear that we have over twelve million people here illegally, they feel as if we are being taken advantage of. They see how hard it is to find and keep a steady and well-paying job, and they worry that more people will mean more competition for already scarce work. That’s not nativism. That’s human nature.
It does not have to be this way. We can have an America in which a thriving middle class coexists with continued, orderly, legal immigration.
We must begin by reigniting economic growth and opportunity in this nation. When our economy is growing and thriving, employment isn’t a zero-sum game. A new American’s gain does not have to be an existing American’s loss. If that were true, every time we hand out a high school or college diploma to one person we should hand an unemployment check to someone else. In fact, the opposite is true.
That’s why, just as in all the other conservative reforms discussed in this book, having an immigration system that works for our country begins with economic growth. Indeed, instead of being an impediment to equal opportunity and widely shared prosperity, the right immigration system is a critical component of economic growth. One study by former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin found that if we modernized our immigration system from a family-based one to one focused on merit and productivity, we could grow the economy by almost a full percentage point in the near term and raise per capita growth by over $1,500.
Our current system is damaging our economy. Each year our colleges and universities graduate foreign students who are among the best and the brightest in the whole world. Instead of putting them to work here, innovating products and creating jobs, we send them back to China and India to compete against us. This makes no sense. If one of our college graduates is a world-class basketball player, there is little doubt he will wind up staying to play in the NBA. But if he or she is a world-class scientist, we make them leave!
Making our legal immigration system a merit-based system that encourages innovators will have broad benefits for our economy. Studies show, for example, that 40 percent of American Fortune 500 firms were started by immigrants. What’s more, roughly half of the most successful start-ups in Silicon Valley were started by people who weren’t born in this country. And since 2000—despite the restrictions we have on merit-based immigration—over a third of the American Nobel Prize winners in chemistry, medicine and physics have been immigrants. This kind of scientific and entrepreneurial activity generates jobs across the income spectrum—from corner-suite executives to construction workers and IT engineers. Just the kind of jobs that help Americans rise to the middle class and beyond.
Transitioning to a merit-based, high-skilled immigration system would also help immigrants assimilate more quickly and easily into American economic and civil life. As reform conservative authors Yuval Levin and Reihan Salam have written, a merit-based system—in conjunction with formal civic education requirements, such as a test on American history and government before being granted a green card—would have the effect of allowing immigrants to integrate more successfully into American communities and reduce the isolation and poverty of many of today’s immigrant communities.
The benefits of a merit-based legal immigration system are widely (although not universally) accepted in America. So why, then, has nothing been done about it? The reason is our illegal immigration problem. We will never have the votes needed in Congress to modernize any part of our immigration system until the issue of illegal immigration is adequately dealt with first.
A significant percentage of Americans simply don’t trust either party in Washington to address other aspects of immigration reform before illegal immigration has been brought under control, and for good reason. The immigration reform law of 1986 legalized more than three million people who were here illegally, but the enforcement measures were never fully implemented.
For years President Obama, his allies in Congress and many immigration reform supporters have told us that the border was “as secure as ever.” This fallacy was dramatically exposed when portions of our southern border were essentially overrun in the early part of 2014. Then there are the numerous examples of President Obama simply ignoring, suspending, rewriting and violating the law through executive action. All of these things have left many to conclude that, no matter what enforcement mechanisms are written into law, this administration will simply ignore them. The result is a stalemate on an issue of critical importance.
So what is the way forward? First, we must make the argument that reform is needed at all. I have heard some argue that all we need to do is enforce the laws we have already. But that is not accurate. On the enforcement side, we need additional investment in electronic monitoring and personnel. Building more fencing alone will not be enough to address illegal crossings. We also need to give employers a reliable way to check the legal status of the people they hire. We need to invest in an entry and exit tracking system to prevent visa overstays. All of this would require reform.
How do we achieve this reform, given the current stalemate? We must begin by acknowledging that, considering our recent experience with massive pieces of legislation, achieving comprehensive reform of anything in a single bill is simply not realistic.
Having tried that approach, I know this to be true firsthand. The fear that such massive pieces of legislation include some clever loophole or unintended consequence makes it even harder to achieve. The only way we are going to be able to break this impasse and make progress on this issue is in a sequential and piecemeal way, with a series of bills that build upon one another until ultimately we have put in place the kind of immigration system our nation needs.
The first step must be enforcement measures that are effective and verifiable. Such measures would include securing the most vulnerable and most trafficked sectors of the southern border, mandatory E-Verify and the full implementation of an entry-exit tracking system.
The second step is to modernize our legal immigration system toward a merit-based one. That would mean reassigning existing visas away from family-based immigration and toward work- and skill-based immigration, passing reforms for high-tech visas, as well as creating a limited guest worker program for seasonal workers in the agricultural sector to reduce the incentive for these workers to come here illegally in the future.
Once both of these reforms have been passed, then I believe the conditions will be in place to address the most politically sensitive aspect of immigration reform: what to do with more than twelve million people currently here illegally.
On the one hand, calls to grant amnesty to twelve million people are unrealistic and quite frankly irresponsible. On the other hand, not a single opponent of the Senate bill I helped author proposed that we try to round up and deport twelve million human beings. So how do we deal with this dilemma? I believe that if the enforcement measures are in place, there exists a path forward that would obtain a significant majority in Congress and the support of a majority of Americans across the political spectrum. It consists of three parts.
First, those here illegally must come forward and be registered. If they have committed serious crimes or have not been here long enough, they will have to leave. With the new E-Verify system in place, they are going to find it difficult to find a job in any case.
Second, those who qualify would be allowed to apply for a temporary nonimmigrant visa. To obtain it they will have to pay an application fee and a fine, undergo a background check and learn English. Once they receive this work permit, they would be allowed to work legally and travel. To keep it, they will have to pay taxes. They would not qualify for government programs like Obamacare, welfare or food stamps. And if they commit a crime while in this status, they would lose their permit.
Third and finally, those who qualify for a nonimmigrant visa will have to remain in this status for at least a decade. After that, they would be allowed to apply for permanent residency if they so choose. Many who qualify for this status will choose to remain in it indefinitely. But those who choose to seek permanent residency would have to do it the way anyone else would, not through any special pathway.
This three-step plan is not only the best way to reform our immigration system, it is, in my opinion, the only approach that has any chance of success. An overwhelming majority of Americans in both parties would support this sort of incremental approach. Of course, there will be detractors. Some will continue to call for less immigration and more deportations. On the left, some will continue to demand an all-at-once-or-nothing-at-all approach. Just like saving Medicare and Social Security, immigration reform is a powerful political issue. Some on the right know it needs to be done, but they want someone else to do it. Some on the left have concluded that having the issue is more politically valuable than solving the problem. Groups on both sides use it to raise money.
In the end, immigration reform is fundamentally about reforming government and restoring the American people’s faith in the ability of their government to do basic things right. I don’t believe this challenge will be fully met until we have new leaders in Washington who support both the rule of law and the job-creating potential of the free market. Until then, the best way to rebuild trust and reform our broken immigration system is through incremental steps both to fix our immigration system and to realize the full potential of our country.
Why? Because the American Dream is not small. It’s not about entitlement. It’s about opportunity. It is not about parceling out prosperity to the few. It is about a striving, growing prosperity for anyone willing to work hard and to dream. Conservatives have always been the keeper of this flame. We have always been the believers in a growing, striving America. It is a tragedy that today we find ourselves being portrayed as pessimists about America’s potential rather than the optimists we have always been. We will miss a great opportunity to reclaim the true meaning of our movement—and, much more important, to restore the true potential of our country—if we fail to act.
Hillary Clinton https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/immigration-reform/
America needs comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship.
Hillary will:
• Enact comprehensive immigration reform to create a pathway to citizenship, keep families together, and enable millions of workers to come out of the shadows.
• End family detention and close private immigrant detention centers.
• Defend President Obama’s executive actions to provide deportation relief for DREAMers and parents of Americans and lawful residents, and extend those actions to additional persons with sympathetic cases if Congress refuses to act.
“We have to finally and once and for all fix our immigration system – this is a family issue, it’s an economic issue too, but it is at heart a family issue. If we claim we are for family then we have to pull together and resolve the outstanding issues around our broken immigration system. The American people support comprehensive immigration reform not just because it’s the right thing to do—and it is—but because it will strengthen families, strengthen our economy, and strengthen our country. That’s why we can’t wait any longer, we can’t wait any longer for a path to full and equal citizenship.”
HILLARY, MAY 5, 2015
Hillary has shown longstanding, steadfast commitment to America’s immigrants throughout her career. As president, she will work to ensure a fair and just immigration system.
Since the founding of this nation, generations of immigrants have contributed to the strength of America. Immigrants have spurred economic growth, fueled innovation, defended us abroad and added to the unique character of our nation. Despite the steady growth of America’s immigrant population, immigrants continue to earn less, lag on educational attainment rates, and face discrimination. And, while millions of undocumented immigrants have become an integral part of America’s social fabric, many live in fear that deportation will tear their families apart.
Hillary is fighting for an America where every family feels like they belong here. Instead of breaking up hardworking, law-abiding immigrant families who have enriched America for years, she will work to keep families together and ensure a more humane immigration enforcement system.
As president, Hillary will:
• Fight for comprehensive immigration reform legislation with a path to full and equal citizenship. As senator, Hillary was a strong supporter of comprehensive immigration reform, cosponsoring Senator Ted Kennedy’s 2004 bill and supporting the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act in 2006 and 2007. She cosponsored the DREAM Act in the Senate in 2003, 2005, and 2007 to give undocumented students who grew up in the U.S. a chance to contribute to our nation’s growth. As president, Hillary will fight for comprehensive immigration reform that provides a full and equal path to citizenship, treats every person with dignity, upholds the rule of law, protects our borders and national security, and brings millions of hardworking people into the formal economy.
• Defend President Obama’s DACA and DAPA executive actions. President Obama’s executive actions that provide relief from deportation for DREAMers and parents of Americans and lawful residents would protect an estimated 5 million people. Hillary will defend DACA and DAPA against partisan attacks and politically motivated lawsuits that would put DREAMers and others at risk of deportation.
• Do everything possible under the law to go further to protect families. If Congress continues its refusal to act on comprehensive immigration reform, Hillary will put in place a simple, straightforward, accessible system for parents of DREAMers and others with a history of service and contribution to their communities to be able to make their case and be eligible for deferred action as well.
• Conduct humane, targeted immigration enforcement. Hillary believes immigration enforcement must be humane, targeted, and effective. She will focus enforcement resources on detaining and deporting those individuals who pose a violent threat to public safety, and work to ensure refugees who seek asylum in the U.S. have a fair chance to tell their stories.
o End family detention. Hillary believes we should end family detention for parents and children who arrive at our border in desperate situations. We have alternatives to detention for those who pose no flight or public safety risk, such as supervised release, that have proved effective and cost a fraction of what it takes to keep families in detention.
o Close private immigrant detention centers. Hillary will end private immigrant detention centers. She believes we should move away from contracting out this critical government function to private corporations and private industry incentives that may contribute—or have the appearance of contributing—to over-incarceration.
• Expand access to affordable health care to all families. Hillary has been fighting her entire life to ensure that families have access to affordable health care. She sponsored the Immigrant Children’s Health Improvement Act in the Senate, which later became law and allows immigrant children and pregnant women to obtain Medicaid and SCHIP. She believes we should let families—regardless of immigration status—buy into the Affordable Care Act exchanges. Families who want to purchase health insurance should be able to do so.
• Promote naturalization. Hillary believes we need to do more to help the millions of people who are eligible for citizenship to take that last step. She will work to expand fee waivers so more people can get a break on costs; increase access to robust language programs to help people boost their English proficiency; and enhance outreach and education so more people are informed about their options and engaged in the process.
Bernie Sanders https://berniesanders.com/a-fair-and-humane-immigration-policy/
ISSUES
A Fair and Humane Immigration Policy
We are a nation of immigrants. I am the son of an immigrant myself. Their story, my story, our story is a story of America: hard-working families coming to the United States to create a brighter future for their children. The story of immigrants is the story of America, a story rooted in family and fueled by hope. It continues today in families all across the United States.
— SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS
POLICY INITIATIVES
Allow immigrants to purchase health coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
Issue whistleblower visas for workers who report abuse and employer violations.
Redirect resources away from boondoggle walls to modernize our border and ensure proper oversight that protects border communities.
Employ humanitarian parole to ensure the return of unjustly deported immigrants and unify broken families.
Ensure our border remains secure and protects local communities.
Regulate future flows via a reformed visa system and reworked trade agreements.
Put a stop to the notion that the border must be secured before a legalization can happen.
Dismantle inhumane deportation programs and private detention centers.
Reject "The Great Sanctuary City Slander" as the politics of fear, and support humane local and state laws that integrate immigrants to our society.
LEARN MORE
Read the full plan
A Fair and Humane Immigration Policy
Despite the central role immigrants play in our economy and in our daily lives, undocumented workers are reviled by some for political gain and shunted into the shadows. It is time for this disgraceful situation to end. This country faces enormous problems and they will not be solved unless we are united. It is time to end the politics of division in this country.
We cannot and we should not be talking about sweeping up millions of men, women, and children—many of whom have been here for years—and throwing them out of the country. That’s wrong and that type of discussion has got to end.
AS PRESIDENT, SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS WILL:
Sign comprehensive immigration reform into law to bring over 11 million undocumented workers out of the shadows. We cannot continue to run an economy where millions are made so vulnerable because of their undocumented status.
Oppose tying immigration reform to the building of a border fence. Undocumented workers come to the United States to escape economic hardship and political persecution. Tying reform to unrealistic and unwise border patrol proposals renders the promise illusory for millions seeking legal status.
Sign the DREAM Act into law to offer the opportunity of permanent residency and eventual citizenship to young people who were brought to the United States as children. We must recognize the young men and women who comprise the DREAMers for who they are – American kids who deserve the right to legally be in the country they know as home.
Expand President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to include the parents of citizens, parents of legal permanent residents, and the parents of DREAMERs. We need to pursue policies that unites families and does not tear them apart.
Authorize and substantially increase funding for the Legal Services Corporation to provide legal representation to guest workers who have been abused by their employers. Further, employers should be required to reimburse guest workers for housing, transportation expenses and workers’ compensation.
Substantially increase prevailing wages that employers are required to pay temporary guest workers. If there is a true labor shortage, employers should be offering higher, not lower wages.
Rewrite our trade policies to end the race to the bottom and lift the living standards of workers in this country and our trading partners. Not only have free trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA hurt U.S. workers, they have been a disaster for small farmers in Mexico and Central America.
READ THE FULL PLAN
VIDEO
Bernie Sanders on Immigration
America has always been a haven for the oppressed. We cannot and must not shirk the historic role of the United States as a protector of vulnerable people fleeing persecution.
– SEN. BERNIE SANDERS
Roque De La Fuente https://www.rocky2016.com/my-pledge/
Building a wall has never been the solution “I won’t collect a pay check until we create a logical and smart immigration policy.”