Hillary Clinton is quietly signaling to her allies that she’ll provide taxpayer-funded lawyers to help many illegal migrants from Central America and other regions anchor themselves in Americans’ neighborhoods, schools, and jobs.
The signal came in a Monday-night interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, in which she tried to conceal her politically dangerous promise to stop the repatriation of 14 million current illegals, and also of an uncountable number of future illegals.
Clinton’s green-light to Central American migrants — at least 200,000 of whom have been welcomed by President Barack Obama since 2012 — was hidden in legal jargon.
“For people who do come, especially from Central America, they need to be treated humanely and fairly, they need to be given full due-process to see if they qualify under our laws to be given asylum status,” she said.
“Full due process”means easy access to U.S. immigration courts and to help from lawyers, paid for by U.S. taxpayers. If the migrants win asylum, they’re immediately given residency, work-permits, access to welfare and schools, plus a fast-track to citizenship and the voting booth.
Free taxpayer-funded lawyers for migrants has been a growing demand from advocates of illegal immigration, who have pulled Clinton sharply to the left during the primary process. New York’s progressive mayor, for example, has already provided city ID cards and lawyers to many illegals.
Clinton knows that voters strongly oppose the flow of unskilled migrants across the southern border — partly because they drive down wages and their children crowd schools — and so she suggested she would try to stop the future flow of illegals into the United States.
“I don’t see a purpose in breaking up families” of illegal immigrants already in the United States, she told Cooper, effectively repeating her March 9 promise to halt the repatriation of roughly 14 million illegals who are now reducing Americans’ wages and absorbing tax dollars.
Cooper then reminded her that a welcome for the current population of 14 million illegals might encourage more illegals to enter the United States. In fact at least 150 million people — not counting their dependents, spouses, children and parents — told Gallup they would like to migrate to the United States, which now has a population of roughly 310 million.
That’s when Clinton tried to conceal her policy, by suggesting that improved border-fences will prevent a huge wave of copycat illegals. “I think we can send a strong message that we’re literally drawing a line between those who have been here [now] so that those who might think, ‘Hey, I can fit in under that line,’ are told ‘No, they can’t,” she said.
Clinton tried to explain why her new “line” would be any stronger than the existing border defenses which have failed to deter millions of Mexican and Latino migrants. “We have increased defenses along the border … right now, there is no net-migration from Mexico. In fact, Mexicans have gone back to their home villages.” she said, without suggesting the border fences should be strengthened.
Illegal immigration by Mexicans into the United States fell following the bursting of the real-estate bubble, but may be increasing. That suspected rise comes as Obama has issued orders to minimize enforcement of immigration laws, both at the border and well within the United States.
In contrast, Donald Trump has won frontrunner status in the GOP race by promising to reduce companies’ use of foreign blue-collar and white-collar guest-workers and to build a wall against illegal immigration. He has also urged a one or two-year pause in legal immigration, which now brings in one million immigrants each year, most of whom compete for jobs against the four million Americans who enter the job market each year. The federal government also helps companies bring in roughly 700,000 guest-workers each year.