You exclude all of those people. You also exclude all of
the families who are trying to reunite with their loved ones when they
come here and they bring their spouse or they bring their parent or
their child. That whole system of family-based immigration that the
United States has built so much of our country around, that, too, would
be excluded. Unfortunately, this President is still not at a place where he has
said and embraced the idea of comprehensive immigration reform, an
immigration reform that has been, until this point, traditionally
bipartisan--68 bipartisan votes in the U.S. Senate in 2013 for a
comprehensive immigration bill that would have brought $1.5 trillion
into our economy over the next 10 years by legalizing and providing a
pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants but, perhaps equally
importantly, would have provided the dignity and respect to
undocumented immigrants in a very different way than what the President
spoke about last night. My colleague Mr. Raskin talked a little bit about health care and the
Affordable Care Act, and during his speech, the President,
unfortunately, again renewed the theme that the Affordable Care Act has
been a disaster.
Keywords matched
immigration undocumented immigrants