Dem Sen. Bennet: With Right Leaders, We Can Get ‘Pathway to Citizenship’ for 11 Million Like ‘We Need to’

While discussing 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris’ border record on Wednesday’s broadcast of NBC’s “MTP Now,” Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) stated that “with the right leadership in Washington,” we can deal with the immigration issue “the way we did it in the Gang of Eight bill, securing the border, a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million people, the DREAM Act, and the visa bills that are so important to our agriculture sector.”

Host Gabe Gutierrez asked, “With regards to Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), the Trump campaign has gone all in attacking her record on the border. Just yesterday, in that rally in Atlanta, the Vice President came out very aggressively trying to counter that narrative. Would Mark Kelly mitigate that?”

Bennet responded, “Oh, I think he could help a lot on that issue. He understands the border. … He’s from a border state. But listen, the reality is, the Republicans walked away from this immigration bill because Donald Trump wanted to keep it as a campaign issue. That’s no secret to everybody. What is less well understood is that’s not the first time. I was part of the Gang of Eight. It’s now ten years ago, four Republicans and four Democrats, who wrote the last comprehensive immigration bill that passed the Senate with 68 votes. And who killed it? The Freedom Caucus in the House killed it. Because they don’t actually want to solve the issue, they just want to campaign on the issue. … And the reality is, the country needs to deal with this, and we need to deal with it the way we did it in the Gang of Eight bill, securing the border, a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million people, the DREAM Act, and the visa bills that are so important to our agriculture sector. And I think that we can do it. This is something that, with the right leadership in Washington, we can do.”

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