The Candidates, and Immigration, at a Glance
Where do the remaining presidential candidates -- Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama -- stand on illegal immigration? All support a tighter border, stricter employer sanctions and a path towards citizenship for a limited number of immigrants already in the country. But how have their views developed through the years? Here are the candidates' stances regarding immigration. And some memorable quotes, too.
McCain
Arizona Senator John McCain has had a hard time rallying his party base around illegal immigration. This February, while speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC, McCain was booed when he mentioned his push for comprehensive immigration reform last year. A month earlier a GOP Michigan crowd gave him a similar reception when he brought up the issue.
In 2005, the “McCain-Kennedy Bill,” otherwise know as the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, called for a coordinated enforcement of the nation’s borders, as well as the so-called "Essential Worker Visa Program" with a new category called "H-5A."
The new category would have opened the doors for alien workers to perform jobs otherwise not covered in the existing visa categories. The temporary visa would have allowed foreign workers to perform jobs for three years, with a possible extension after that period. Spouses and children would have been able to follow the principal applicant into the country. That category, alongside the intention to allow undocumented immigrants to become U.S. citizens, has stalled the bill in Congress amid heated debate.
Since then, McCain has remained evasive regarding immigration, choosing instead to focus on border enforcement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-nVJGsTdKU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG2d1ES3svE
Obama
As the son of a Kenyan father, Barack Obama has reminded American audiences that immigrants who landed on Ellis Island "were men and women who had the supreme courage to strike out for themselves, to abandon language and relatives, to start at the bottom without influence, without money, and without knowledge of life in a very young civilization."
Obama has added that Americans would do themselves – and illegal workers – a "disservice" if they do not recognize the contributions of immigrants.
But the Illinois senator acknowledges that immigrants here illegally have disrespected the rule of law and should he held accountable. "And because we live in an age where terrorists are challenging our borders, we simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, and unchecked," he has said.
He has called for employers to be held accountable for hiring undocumented workers.
Last November, during the Democratic debate in Las Vegas, Obama said, "An employer has more of a chance of getting hit by a lightning than being prosecuted for hiring undocumented workers."
Clinton
Senator Hillary Clinton’s stance on illegal immigration has wavered over the years. In February 2003 she told a Washington radio station that she was “"adamantly against illegal immigrants."
In 2006, though, she declared that Republican efforts to criminalize undocumented workers and their support networks "would literally criminalize the good Samaritan and probably Jesus himself."
"You are the faces of America," she told a pro-immigrant rally in New York City in 2006. "The faces of the people who care for our children and elderly. The faces of the people who do the hard work of construction and landscaping. The faces of people who wait on us in restaurants and clean up after us in hotel rooms. The faces of those who give us a good day's work and often not for a fair day's pay."
She does support allowing at least some of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants the right to obtain citizenship. And Clinton has called on business owners who knowingly hire the undocumented to stop. She has called comprehensive immigration reform a priority.
In New York, Clinton recently backtracked from an effort to allow illegal immigrants access to drivers licenses after the controversial measure caused heated debate in Albany.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B0uHybfmmY
