The greatest concern about immigration policy should be the overall numbers admitted and not about the race, national origin and other characteristics of individual immigrants, claims the NumbersUSA TV commercial to be aired during this Thursday's Republican Presidential debate on FOX News.
Days before the first debate of the 2016 Presidential race, most of the GOP Presidential Hopefuls gathered last night at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire to answer questions, including a few on immigration. None of the candidates offered any new positions, but several cemented positions already taken.
Is high immigration a policy the United States should use as a humanitarian response to help the poor of the world? Bernie Sanders shocked a lot of journalists and other immigration expansionists this week by indicating that the answer is NO.
Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders got a lot of media attention this week for a statement that most Americans would find totally non-controversial. Sanders surprised interviewer Ezra Klein of Vox with a forceful rejection of an open-borders immigration policy. Byron York of the Washington Examiner reports:
After a lot of criticism over the weekend of his recent remarks about letting the "good" illegal aliens stay, Donald Trump has gone on national media to clarify his remarks about amnesty -- a bit. There is still a lot of confusion about the details of his stance, and it is likely that he has not yet thought about those policy details.
(NOTE: Trump's positions in this blog have been superseded by later comments found in later blogs.) Donald Trump, Scott Walker and Rick Santorum revealed important things about themselves in high-pressure moments this past week, surrounded by the cameras and tape recorders of national media.
The momentum is building against sanctuary cities.Just Tuesday night, I posted a blog chiding the 2016 Presidential Hopefuls for being too timid in their response to the issues raised by the killing in the sanctuary city of San Francisco.But we have been pleased to get a lot of new evidence of something of a groundswell toward specifically cutting funding for cities that protect criminal foreign citizens and even support for specific bills introduced in Congress. It is very powerful to have so many Presidential Hopefuls supporting specific congressional action.
In the last week -- amidst the national controversy kicked up by the killing in the sanctuary city of San Francisco -- our NumbersUSA Grade Card Committee has made far more changes to the 2016 Presidential Hopefuls Worker-Protection Immigration Grade Cards than at any other time since we introduced them in the spring. We changed immigration category ratings for 10 of the 21 Hopefuls we are following.
Reuters reports GOP presidential candidates Scott Walker and Rick Santorum could make inroads with working-class voters based on their desire to allow fewer to legally immigrate to the United States. Such voters have struggled with stagnant wages and fewer job opportunities since the great recession, which started in 2007.
What changed this week in how the 22 Presidential Hopefuls stack up in protecting American workers from harmful immigration policies?
Former Arkansas governor and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, addressed his stance on immigration in an interview with Breitbart News Sunday. While Gov. Huckabee spoke out against tech companies abusing the H-1B guest worker program in order to replace American workers, he indicated that the immigration debate is too focused on how many people are coming into the country and we need to "get as many people here that want to come."
The most common critique of our 2016 Presidential Hopefuls comparison grid this week has been of our amnesty rating for Ted Cruz. The Texas Senator has a mixed history on the issue, but we've given Cruz our second best rating of "Very Good". Here's how we arrived at that rating.
After weeks of work, our NumbersUSA team is ready to show you our evaluations of the 20 politicians who Real Clear Politics show are polling at 1% or higher for the 2016 Presidential Election.
We will very soon be posting our every-four-year Presidential Hopefuls Immigration Grade Cards on the 20 candidates who are polling at 1% or higher.
And we will update their ratings and grades every week until the 2016 election is held.
Every election cycle, we get hammered by people who think we have gone too hard on their favorite candidate and too easy on a competitor. But we are transparent, providing all the statements and actions (plus citations) that we use to rate each Hopeful.
Former Senator and possible presidential candidate Rick Santorum laid out an immigration policy that he says “prioritizes American’s needs, workers, and families.” It calls for: securing the border and ending the border surge; tracking all entries and exits; making E-Verify mandatory; ending birthright citizenship for aliens; pursuing interior enforcement; reducing legal immigration; and denying further work permits to illegal aliens.
At a campaign stop in Nevada yesterday, 2016 Presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton, pledged to fight for 'comprehensive immigration reform' with an amnesty for most illegal aliens living in the United States and to go further than President Obama in using executive authority to grant amnesty to individuals in the country illegally. Changing the immigration system would be a top priority should she become president, Clinton said. "We can't wait any longer. We can't wait any longer for a path to full and equal citizenship."
