Hillary Clinton Attacks Trump And Rubio On Immigration
Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton spoke Monday night at the 2015 National Immigration Integration Conference in New York. In her speech, she criticized the immigration plans of Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, Republican presidential hopefuls, and laid out the steps in the pathway to citizenship she proposes for illegal immigrants.
Without naming him, she attacked Trump’s proposed solution to our illegal immigration problem and the threat of terrorism on American soil.
According to ABC News, Clinton said, in part, “They promise if elected to round and deport millions of people, build a mammoth wall, militarize the border, tear families apart,” said Clinton. “And after the terror shootings in San Bernardino at a time when a lot of Americans are fearful about future attacks here at home, some candidates are even stroking those fears more and turning people against Muslim Americans.”
She stated that Trump’s suggested wall would “drag us backward,” according to a report by the Observer.
Clinton also called out Marco Rubio, saying he is going to extremes in his response to these issues.
She criticized his renouncement of the 2013 Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act he helped write, calling him out by name when she said, “Not a single Republican candidate, not one, clearly and consistently supports a real path to citizenship,” she said. “Now you know, Senator Rubio actually helped write the 2013 immigration bill. Now he renounces it. They’re all moving toward the extreme.”
She called this a “blow to a lot of people in this room and across our country when that 2013 bill failed.”
Business Insider states that Clinton’s linking of Donald Trump and Marco Rubio in last night’s speech is a predictable strategic tactic. Instead of specifically calling out Trump, she stated that “[c]andidates for president are calling immigrants drug-runners and rapists,” in reference to a statement Trump made when he announced he was running for president. By failing to state that it was Trump who described immigrants in this manner, she painted an unfavorable picture of the Republican Party as a whole.
This isn’t the first time Clinton has used controversial statements by Trump to criticize the Republican Party. In July, Business Insider reported that she called his remarks disappointing and believed that the Republican Party should have quickly refuted them and told him to stop making comments like these that many find offensive.
In her speech, Clinton expressed her ideas for making healthcare available to illegal immigrants and their families, closing private immigration detention centers, ending family detention, and expanding fee waivers for those seeking citizenship. She also committed to limiting deportation to violent criminals, expand refugee asylum, create new English language learning centers, and increase outreach to the undocumented.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wDGSPEEUAs
NBC News is reporting that a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll indicates that if the election were held today, Hillary Clinton would defeat both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. The same poll indicates that she would not beat either Marco Rubio or Ben Carson, who both performed just as well as or better than Clinton in the poll among white women, independents, and seniors.
Two of Hillary Clinton’s rivals for the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Martin O’Malley of Maryland, are scheduled to speak at the same convention over the next couple of days.
[Photo courtesy of Spencer Platt, Scott Olson, Alex Wong/Getty Images]
