Tuesday at the Commonwealth Club, Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson said while it sounds “really cool” to say “let’s just round them all up and ship them back” on the topic of the estimated 12 million immigrants living illegally in the Untied States, that would cause food prices to skyrocket and industries like lodging and farming to collapse.
Carson said, “You have to turn off the spigot that dispenses goodies, including employment. If there is nothing to come for, then people won’t come. That will stop the influx. You still have to deal with the people who are here already. And you know, it sounds really cool you know, ‘Let’s just round them all up and ship them back.’ People who say that have no idea what it would entail in terms of our legal system—the cost—forget about it. And plus, where are you going to send them? So that’s, you know, a double whammy.”
“What I have suggested is that we allow people to become guest workers, assuming that they don’t have any criminal record, or if they have anything askew—they go,” he continued. “They have a six-month window and they can get registered. They can pay a back taxes penalty. They can pay their taxes going forward, and they now exist above ground. Now why is that an important thing to do? I was talking to a farmer in South Dakota recently—he has an 8,000 acre farm. He starts workers out at eleven dollars an hour. He said he could not hire a single American—not one. And I have encountered many others who say the same thing. The farming industry would collapse. And there are those who say—yeah but we need to have high high wages—that have no idea what that is going to do to their food prices. They are very naive when they say that. It is also the hotel industry, there are a lot of industries.”
He added, “So if there are hard working people who have been here working hard and they want to continue working hard and they have a clean record and they are contributing, I don’t feel that it’s practical to round them all up and throw them out.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.