Ep 300 | Trump vs. Biden 2020: Immigration
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Summary
In this episode of Relatable, we continue our election series by discussing immigration policy and the role of the Bible in immigration policy. I talk about the complexities of immigration policy, and how a biblical worldview can guide our understanding of it.
Transcript
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. I hope everyone had a great weekend. Today
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we are continuing our election series and we are talking about immigration. We took a
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break last week for Labor Day and we did a replay why feminism will fail you. So you
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can go back and listen to that if you'd like. But this is our election series. We've talked
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about abortion. We have talked about religious liberty. And now we are talking about immigration.
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Immigration actually hasn't really been in the news a lot lately, but it has been within
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Trump's term. And there are a lot of you who have friends who have said the reason why I
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am not voting for Donald Trump is because of his immigration policy that they think is
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cruel, they think is not Christian, they believe is not pro-life. There was a New York Times
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article a couple of years ago that I covered at the time, and it was interviewing two women,
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I think actually out of Texas, who are evangelical Christians who had voted Republican their entire
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adult lives and decided that they could no longer do so because they believed that Trump's border
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policy was not what they called a pro-life or what a lot of people call pro-life. And what they mean
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by that is that, okay, pro-life is not just being anti-abortion. It is being pro-life in all stages
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of life, in all different segments of policy. Now, I don't like that redefinition. Pro-life is pro-life.
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It is anti-abortion. That doesn't mean that you can't also advocate for other policies that you
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think support life, but it doesn't simply mean being pro-all liberal policies. And that's what
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a lot of people on the left have tried to do. They have tried to say, well, if you're really pro-life,
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then you're going to be for all these liberal programs and policies that support, for example,
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unconditional welfare and open borders and things like that. And I just am not going to acquiesce to
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the redefinition of a term which has a clear definition, and that is being against the murder of
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unborn children. Again, you can be for other policies that you believe support life, but you
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don't have to be for all the liberal policies that they say support life that conservatives don't
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actually believe are helpful or productive or good. So resist that redefinition. You can say that we
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need strong borders and we need good border policy, and we believe in legal immigration, not illegal
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immigration and still be pro-life. Do not give in to the pressure that says, no, no, no, no, you have
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to believe in open borders. You can't believe in the construction of a wall and still call yourself
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pro-life. Well, I'm sorry. The people who believe in the dismemberment of babies in the womb don't get
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to tell me what is pro-life and what is not. So again, resist the redefinition of that term. We have to be
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able to talk about subjects as they come, and we have to be able to do so from a biblical worldview.
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Immigration is a subject on which Christians are going to disagree in good faith, and that is okay.
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So whereas abortion, I really don't think a biblical Christian, as if there is any other kind of
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Christian, but a true Christian who is following Christ and is seeking to align their worldview to the
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word of God, I do not believe that you can have a nuanced view on abortion. I don't believe that
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you can be pro-abortion or pro the legalization of the murder of babies and have a biblical worldview.
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I am not questioning your salvation. Maybe you're at a certain point in your sanctification. We all
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learn and grow. I certainly have, even in that particular subject. But a biblical worldview says that
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the murder of babies is wrong, period, end of story. Now, with immigration, there are so many
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complexities. There are so many intricacies when it comes to border policy and immigration policy
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that Bible-believing Christians, again, there is no other kinds, but just to clarify, since they're
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nominal Christians, Christians in name only, and Christians who actually believe and abide by the Bible,
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I qualify that. Bible-believing Christians who are going to disagree on this, and that is okay.
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That doesn't make one side any more or less Christian. It might make one side more wrong,
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but that doesn't mean that they are less genuine in their faith. But it is important for us to get
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this right. Now, as I say, pretty much at the front of all of these election episodes, we're not going
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to be able to get into every single nook and cranny of immigration and immigration policy in the United
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States. I actually did a podcast episode a year ago last summer, a little over a year ago, called
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Immigration. That's what it's titled. You can just type that into YouTube. You can type it into wherever
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you listen to your podcast. So on the podcast app, you can type in relatable immigration. It should come
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up. And I did go into more detail than I will today about what the United States immigration
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system looks like, what are some of the problems, why Republicans and Democrats have failed on this,
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the different Republican and Democrat positions. And we will go into some of that today, but we don't
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have time to go into all of it because I have to compare the two tickets. And as I've also said on
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some other election episodes, it's not just the two tickets, or it's not even mainly the two tickets
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that I'm looking at. It is the two parties that I'm looking at. Because remember, we are voting not
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mostly for a person. We are voting for a party. We are voting for an administration. We are voting for
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an entire platform. And most of all, we are voting for a worldview. So first, I want to talk through
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some facts about immigration in the United States. Before I do that, I just want to remind you guys about
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my book, You're Not Enough and That's Okay, Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love. We do talk about
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politics actually a little bit in this book. We talk about social justice versus real justice. We talk
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about cancel culture. We talk about socialism versus capitalism, the importance of hard work. But this
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book is about a worldview, a worldview that is centered on yourself and why it is going to fail you and why
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believing these messages that sound good and that feel good, these messages of self-love,
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actually leads you to a faulty worldview that will not only make you miserable, but will break down
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society if we all buy into it. So I encourage you to pick up the book if you haven't already. You can
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go to AllieBethStuckey.com slash book. Join my book club on Facebook where we discussed this and all the
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books that we've read together. It's Women's Book Club with Allie Stuckey. We're reading a book by
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Thomas Sowell right now, Discrimination and Disparities. If you are a woman who wants to join, would love for
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you to do that. But again, go to AllieBethStuckey.com slash book to pick up my book if you have not already.
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OK, some facts about immigration in the United States. Number one, according to Pew Research, by a wide
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margin, America has more immigrants than any other nation on Earth. The estimate is that 44.8 million
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people in the United States are immigrants, illegal or legal. That was the number in 2018, which was a
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record high. The vast majority, about 77 percent, are here legally. But we have about 11 million illegal
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immigrants in the country. We also, number two point, we accept more legal immigrants every year
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than any other country by far, excepting over one million annually. So America accepts the most
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immigrants every year. One fifth of all the world's migrants reside in the United States. Immigrants make
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up 13.7 percent of the United States population. So a huge portion of the United States is made up of
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immigrants. Most of America's immigrants come from Mexico. The second most come from China, then third
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India. We have very few Americans that leave our country to emigrate elsewhere, to go live into
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another to go live in another country. So this is going to take me down a little rabbit hole, which I
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know that I harp on this a lot, but it's so important because of the presiding narrative that I believe is
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tearing apart a large portion of our country and burning our cities down. I just want to use these
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statistics to push back against the anti-American narrative that is so prevalent right now. The idea
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that America is this evil caste system, that it is systemically unjust against people who are not
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white, that it pushes down the poor. It doesn't allow for equal opportunity and equal justice. That
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message, that idea has not been effectively relayed to the millions and millions of people who come here
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every year over any other country in the world. We keep hearing how unjust and unfair America is. And
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as I've said before, you don't have to tell me that America has injustices, that America has
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unfairness. Again, America slaughters hundreds of thousands of babies in the womb every year in this
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country. There are unfortunately problems with our justice system that disproportionately affect the poor.
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There are unjust parts of our system, but we keep hearing that America is endemically, systemically
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unjust, that there is no part of our country that is redeemable or good or that has offered equal
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opportunity, equal liberty and equal justice for all. But if that is the case, then why do we have millions of
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people coming here? Why do we have over a million immigrants coming here every year? If socialism, for
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example, is so much better than capitalism. And that is what we're hearing from the AOC wing of the
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Democratic Party, from the people that are tearing down our cities, from organizations like BLM and
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Antifa, that capitalism is bad, that capitalism oppresses. Why don't people ever leave capitalist
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countries to go to socialist ones? Why is it always people coming from socialist countries to
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capitalist ones? If capitalism is so bad and America is so bad and socialism is so good,
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why are people fleeing socialist totalitarian countries to come to capitalist countries? You're
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going to have to riddle me that before you tell me that we need to tear down our country and rebuild
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the country in the way of communism and socialism. All the people saying that America is a caste system.
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Tell that to the millions of Indian immigrants who escaped an actual caste system to come here for
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opportunity. The middle class in India makes anywhere from $7,700 to $15,400 per year in India. Most people in
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India, as most of you know, are very poor. It is impossible in India to become rich just by
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entrepreneurism, by merit and by hard work and by opportunity. You are usually, the vast majority of the time, if not
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all the time, stuck in your lot in life, if you stay there in India. That is a caste system. It is based on your
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ethnicity. It is based on the station in which you are born, the family that you were born to, not your
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talent, not your hard work, not your grit or your ambition. In America, households headed by Indian
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immigrants have a median income, according to migrantpolicy.org, of over $107,000. A median income.
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Indian Americans, Indian immigrants in America, a median income of $107,000. The median income for
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native-born Americans is $56,000. This is a quote from the website. Just 7% of Indian immigrants
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lived in poverty in the United States in 2015, a much lower rate than the foreign-born population
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overall, and the U.S.-born, 17% and 14% respectively. So you want to talk about a caste system, why don't you
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talk to an Indian immigrant? He was coming from a place where the middle class makes anywhere from
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$7,000 to $15,000 in U.S. dollars a year in India, and they are stuck in that lot in life forever.
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And compare that, ask them to compare and contrast that to living here, where the median income for
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Indian immigrants is $107,000, $50,000 more than U.S.-born people. In India, at least 44% of the
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country live in severe poverty. In America, only 7% of Indians live in poverty. And our poverty in the
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United States is nothing like the poverty in India. The poor here are rich compared to the poor in India
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and rich compared to the poor in virtually every other country in the world. So again, for all this
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talk about the American dream being a mirage, about it not being real, being just a myth, America not
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being a land of opportunity, operating in a white supremacist caste system, it is just not true. It's
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not factual. The group with the highest median income in America is not white Americans. It is Asian
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Americans. $87,000 earned, median income versus $87,000 earned versus about $65,000 earned for
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white Americans. So I ask you, would it be possible for a systemically racist country, we're talking
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systemically, so that means everything, all of the systems and institutions in America are racist. That
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is the argument that is being made by many on the left right now. That is systemically racist. America
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is towards non-white people. Would it be set up so that brown immigrants and non-white non-immigrants
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can become wildly financially successful, more successful than our native-born populations, more
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successful on average than our white populations? Now, I am not using that to say that racism does not
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exist again, or that injustice doesn't exist in America, but it is hard to make the argument that
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the American system is set up by and for white supremacy, when in fact, white people are not
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supreme, even in the aspect of financial success. According to the National Center for Education
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Studies, Asian Americans have the highest high school graduation rates and college graduation rates
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among all ethnicities in America. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Asian Americans
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have the lowest unemployment rate. It's interesting to note that Asian Americans also have the highest
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rate of two-parent homes, which I believe has a lot to do with the rest of their general success.
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Now, not all of those that I am talking about in all of those statistics are immigrants, not all
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those Asian Americans that I'm talking about, but that is not my point. My point is that it's easy to see
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why people come here, because there is no other country on earth where an ethnic minority group
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could go and be more successful across a variety of categories than the ethnic majority group.
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That just doesn't happen in other places on earth. Think about the fact. Think about this.
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A Somali immigrant, Ilhan Omar, has become a congresswoman and has become one of the most
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prominent figures on the left by calling for the complete transformation of capitalism,
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or really the destruction of capitalism and a transformation of the American economy,
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a destruction and transformation of the American rule of law. She has become famous by accusing
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America of being a place of injustice and evil. This is a woman who has laughed about the threat of
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the terrorist regime, Hamas, described 9-11 as, quote, some people did something and who advanced
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or who advocated on behalf of ISIS terrorists in her district when she was a state representative
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in Minnesota. This woman, this immigrant, has become famous because of and in spite of these
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things that she has done and said. She has made it her mission in life and in her career to stand
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against all that has made America both good and great. And she is prominent, praised, and gracing the
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covers of magazines. And you want to tell me, there are people who want to tell me that America won't
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accept or elevate anyone, no matter where they come from, no matter what they look like, no matter
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what their beliefs are. Is there another country on earth, maybe Britain, who would allow and glorify
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this? Do you think that any white person could immigrate to a non-white country and build a career
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off of saying how awful the country and their leadership is? It just wouldn't happen. It could not
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happen. America went from segregation, horrible, horrible thing, segregation, to having a black
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president win in a landslide twice in a row in less than 50 years, to having a black Supreme Court
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justice and black attorneys general and black secretaries of state, black billionaires. Let's not
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act like America has not made tremendous strides in the area of liberty and justice for all and equality
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through peaceful and democratic means. So for all the people saying America doesn't listen to peace,
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America is this terrible place. We have to be violent. We have to riot. We have to loot. What
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are you talking about? If you think that America is even remotely close to where we were in the 1960s,
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you are naive. You just don't know. We were moving in the right direction until the onslaught of identity
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politics and intersectionality and critical theory, largely thanks to the rhetoric of the Obama
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administration and the cancer that has infiltrated our academia. All of that has accomplished exactly
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what those philosophies aim to accomplish, which is dividing and building resentment. All we had to do
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was keep going in the direction that we were going, better manifesting our founding ideals of liberty and
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justice for all. And we were doing well, but now we are going backward. Colleges and organizations
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talking about segregating white and black students for safe spaces. America has not become more racist,
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but talking about racism has become more lucrative. Talking about critical theory and intersectionality
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has become trendy. In some cases, victimhood, perpetual victimhood, grievance studies have become
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more lucrative and more trendy. And so we are in a place that is more divided and more resentful
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than we have been in decades. So instead of being able to say, here is where real injustice exists,
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we have gone off the rails into the realm of calling everything injustice. We look at disparities
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and point to discrimination without looking at all the factors that play into disparities. The cultural
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movement from the left has become cancerous for our society because it denies the good parts of America,
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the great parts of our system, and shreds our shared identity as people who want a more just,
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more equal society based on our founding values. America is unique in our founding values.
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We are good. And the immigrants around the world, the millions and millions who have come here for a
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better life, they know this. There is no other country on earth where you can come here as an
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ethnic minority and be considered a new nationality. Ronald Reagan said something like this, and I'm
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paraphrasing. You can never move to France and become French. You can't move to Russia or Ghana or
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Mexico or Sweden and become Russian or Ghana or Mexican or Swedish. It just won't happen. You will
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always be a foreign national or you will always be a foreigner in a new place. Even if you become a
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citizen, you won't become French or become Russian, but you can move to America from anywhere on earth,
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become a citizen, and you are an American just as much as someone whose ancestors have been here
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since the Mayflower. Let's not deny that that's an amazing miracle that has never been the case
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in any country in all of history. That is part of what makes America the greatest country on earth.
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We are unique. We are uniquely welcoming, uniquely multicultural, uniquely fair. Again, that doesn't mean
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that we haven't ever been unwelcoming or ever been xenophobic or ever been unfair. Every country on
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earth has. Every single one. Far more and far greater than America has, by the way, and far longer
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than America has. Every society has had slavery. Every society has, quote, stolen land, by the way.
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People say America is on stolen land. Well, the Native Americans were also stealing land from each other.
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Every country on earth is on some kind of conquered or, quote, stolen land. That is the history of the
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world. Unfortunately, we don't have to like it. We don't have to condone it. We don't have to glorify
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it. But that's the case. America is not unique in that. Every society has had slavery. Every ethnic
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group, black, brown, white, has enslaved either their own ethnic groups or other ethnic groups.
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Africans owned and sold Africans into slavery. Africans owned and sold Europeans. Europeans owned
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and sold Africans. American Indians owned African slaves in America. African Americans owned African
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slaves in America. Every group on earth has at one point been an oppressor. And every group on earth
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has at one point been oppressed. That is the truth about history that those who say America is uniquely
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evil and racism and slavery are unique to white people simply do not want to face. Critical race
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theory won't allow that kind of humble admission. People cannot be neatly categorized into oppression
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groups based on their skin color, nationality, or ancestry. We should, therefore, not assign guilt or
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innocent sympathy or malice to people according to their race. The fact is, America has fought wars
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against slavery, against fascism, against communism, against terrorism. And while we are far from perfect,
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no other nation holds a candle to our fight for equal liberty and justice for all, both here and abroad.
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And yet, the movement from the left right now is based on the false premise that America has never
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been free or fair, that all white people are complicit in racism or actively racist, that America is a
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white supremacist country built on white supremacy, and that it must be taken down to the ground,
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completely destroyed and transformed into a system in which white people are robbed of power and capital
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so it can be distributed to non-white people that white people have allegedly oppressed.
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But that is simply not true. As we have said over and over, America is built on good founding principles
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that have been implemented imperfectly throughout our history, and every good step forward that we have
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taken has been closer, a step closer to those founding principles, not away from them. It is in better
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understanding and better manifesting our founding principles that we progress, not in tearing them
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down. Now, I know it seems like maybe that doesn't have anything to do with immigration, but it
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actually does. We have to start with a truthful premise here. And all of these reasons that I have
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listed are why immigrants come here. They come here for these ideals that I've described. They come here
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because they know, despite what the ungrateful Marxists in this country say, America is the land of
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opportunity. It is the land of the refugee and the asylum seeker. It is the land that allows a person
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who starts at the bottom to work their way to the top, no matter who their parents were, no matter what
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they look like. That is why immigrants come to America more than any other country on earth. Because
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even though politicians talk about the poor and talk about the impoverished in this country, what they're
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actually talking about is not a fixed category of people. Only 8% of people who are in the lowest
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economic bracket in society will actually stay poor. The vast majority of people in America who
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are in the lowest economic bracket, according to Thomas Sowell, he talks about this a lot, move up in
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society. That is why people come here. And I know that it seems like we have gone down a subject that is
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away from immigration. But I just want to reiterate for any liberal who is listening to this, the narrative
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that you have perhaps come to believe about America is a lie. We are not perfect. We've had
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injustices, discrimination, prejudice, no doubt. But America is not a systemically racist country today
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in 2020. We are not set up for the supremacy of white people. And that is why more immigrants come
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here every year than to any other country by far. I have suggested many times I would trade all of the
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communists in America for any freedom loving immigrants from any country in the world. I would
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buy their tickets tomorrow. I'm sure that if I started to go fund me for the communist exchange
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program, the communist slash liberty lovers exchange program that I could raise millions and millions of
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dollars. So don't tell me that conservatives are anti-immigrant. I know every conservative that I know
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would be on board with something like that. So it is it is a myth that conservatives are anti-immigration
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or anti-immigrant. We are pro-America. We are pro-liberty. We are pro-law and order, which means
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that we are anti-illegal immigration because there are immigrants who have been waiting in line for years
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to go through this process correctly. And they deserve to be honored by safeguarding the integrity of the
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process as much as we can. It is a matter of safety to protect the border, not just for our citizens,
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but for the thousands of women and children being trafficked at the southern border each year,
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a problem exacerbated by weak borders and weak border policy. Conservatives believe in the sovereignty
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of nations. So that means that every nation, again, has the right and responsibility to have clear,
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defined borders, to protect those borders by enforcing the law on those borders,
00:26:10.840
and to deport people who have broken the law by coming into the country illegally or overstaying
00:26:16.060
their visa illegally. We believe every nation has the right to decide who can and cannot come into
00:26:22.560
their country. And in America, we believe that the standard of who can and cannot come into the
00:26:31.240
country is should be both fair and compassionate. What that means is that we believe immigration should be
00:26:38.840
A, merit-based, B, for the reunification of immediate family members, and or C, for true refugees and
00:26:47.440
asylum seekers. Right now, America has something called the Visa Lottery Program, which means we have
00:26:53.240
to meet certain quotas of immigrants from particular countries. I believe this started under George H.W.
00:26:59.480
Bush. And we also have chain migration, which means that family members of U.S. residents,
00:27:03.860
either citizens or green card holders, are prioritized. But these are not usually immediate
00:27:09.520
family members. This is a distant relative. So this creates something called a chain of migration that
00:27:16.480
is based not on merit, but even on distant familial connection, which means that there will be a limit
00:27:22.560
on those who come here based on their own merits. And I would say that that is unfair. So we believe the
00:27:29.120
United States has the right and responsibility to choose immigrants that are most likely to work,
00:27:34.660
that are most likely to provide for their family, who are most likely to be law-abiding citizens.
00:27:40.500
There is no religious or political ideology test, but we do believe that the people who come here
00:27:46.940
should share our values of liberty, justice, hard work, personal responsibility, and that they should be
00:27:53.620
able to demonstrate those things before becoming legal citizens. But most conservatives also believe
00:28:00.800
in prioritizing people who are reuniting with immediate family members, so parents to their children
00:28:06.680
or children to their parents. We also believe in the importance of accepting a certain number of refugees
00:28:14.080
and asylum seekers every year. Refugees, according to the United States, are, quote,
00:28:20.100
admitted to the United States based upon an inability to return to their home countries because of a
00:28:27.520
well-founded fear of persecution due to their race, membership in a particular social group,
00:28:32.620
political opinion, religion, or national origin. Refugees must apply for status outside of the U.S.
00:28:40.000
in what would be considered a, quote, transition country, so a neighboring country where a credible
00:28:45.100
democracy is established. Admission for refugees is based off various factors from the risk they face
00:28:53.020
to the amount of people at risk in their specifically targeted group. The president,
00:28:57.980
with consultation from Congress, determines the number of refugees per year. Asylum is similar to
00:29:04.660
the refugee status in that the visa status is granted off of fear of harm. However, the biggest
00:29:10.980
difference, the biggest differences are that, one, they may apply any port of entry at the time that
00:29:17.340
they seek admission, and two, there is no limit on the number of individuals who may be granted
00:29:22.300
an asylum status. So being granted asylum is not an easy feat. It's a multi-year process that involves
00:29:29.440
likely detainment, multiple interviews, extensive documentation of an immigrant's prior suffering,
00:29:35.220
and less than great odds. So it's not guaranteed that you will be granted asylum. That's not just
00:29:42.340
in the United States. That's everywhere. And the United States is very generous in granting asylum
00:29:48.260
and refugee status to people who come here. And as difficult as that is, that we cannot accept every
00:29:55.160
single asylum seeker, every single refugee. That is okay. Everyone who leaves their country for
00:30:02.140
America is seeking a better life. That does not make everyone coming to America an asylum seeker or
00:30:07.800
refugee. And it does not mean that America has the unlimited and unconditional capacity to accept
00:30:14.360
everyone who comes here for a better life. No country on earth does that. You can't do that and maintain
00:30:20.500
your sovereignty and maintain your national security. You do as much as you can, as much as is feasible,
00:30:26.660
looking at the needs of your country, looking at how efficient and how effective your current process
00:30:33.120
is. And you make your decision based on that as compassionately as you can, both for the citizens
00:30:39.020
of your country and for the people fleeing persecution and violence. It is a balanced decision that is not
00:30:45.680
as easy as just saying, let them all in. America has led the world in refugee resettlement for decades,
00:30:52.560
far and away the number one country for refugee acceptance, according to Pew Research. So again,
00:30:57.440
this idea that America is this uniquely evil place, again, you're going to have to explain to me why not
00:31:04.340
only we accept more immigrants every year than any other country, but specifically more refugees every
00:31:09.580
year than any other country. Under Reagan, we allowed the most refugees into the country ever.
00:31:15.800
Under Trump, however, and some people have a problem with this, they did lower the number of
00:31:20.980
refugees that we would accept each year. The thought was behind lowering it to 18,000, which was a big
00:31:28.180
decrease in the cap. That doesn't mean that you have to accept that many refugees per year, but it is the
00:31:35.260
maximum number of refugees that you can accept. And the thought behind it was that we have a very
00:31:42.260
bogged down immigration system, which is true. We need to process the people applying for refugee status
00:31:47.280
now. Though seeking legal entry, we need to pump the brakes on allowing so many refugees in. That was
00:31:55.020
the thought behind this, so we can handle the people trying to come in right now. But understandably,
00:32:00.820
this has caused concern, especially among Christians. We know the Bible is clear about
00:32:05.520
helping the foreigner and helping the stranger. Now, some people misuse that verse to say that means we
00:32:11.700
have to have open borders. We don't have any border policy. We don't have any deportation.
00:32:16.380
We don't have any limits or any conditions whatsoever on who can come into the country. Again, all of
00:32:22.140
that would make us effectively not a country. And that is not something that is advocated by Scripture
00:32:27.020
at all. The Bible is very clear that borders are legitimate and that countries are legitimate.
00:32:33.920
Acts 17, 26 says, and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth,
00:32:40.640
having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place. Of course,
00:32:46.300
we know that even though America and no country here on earth is a representation of what ancient
00:32:54.780
Israel was. And so I'm not trying to make that direct comparison, but we can look at God's definitions
00:33:00.700
of justice for ancient Israel. And we can see that he clearly believed in boundaries. He clearly
00:33:06.580
believed in a nation's sovereignty. He clearly believed in laws and protections and rights and
00:33:11.740
privileges for citizens of a country. And he also believed in extending compassion for the foreigner.
00:33:18.080
But again, that doesn't mean that we simply get rid of all kind of border policy or immigration law at
00:33:27.800
all. That would make not only our own citizens vulnerable, it would mean that no one could come here
00:33:34.860
for actual protection because there is no process in which people who should not be here are filtered
00:33:42.040
out. Now, I don't think that lowering the level of refugees that we accept each year should be a top
00:33:51.460
priority. Like I said, the Trump administration cut that drastically. I don't think that that change is,
00:33:59.080
like I said, a top priority or even necessary. I want us to be a country that accepts as many refugees as we
00:34:07.020
feasibly can and as we compassionately can. There is a lot of anger surrounding that and surrounding that
00:34:16.360
issue. Some of it is real. I think some of it is very manufactured. But it is important to me as a Christian
00:34:22.660
that we continue to be a refuge for those who are fleeing violence and who are fleeing persecution.
00:34:29.740
And I think most Christians would agree with me on that. But again, there is a balance and there has
00:34:35.140
to be a reasonable discussion surrounding that. There's also a lot of frustration, manufactured or
00:34:41.440
real, about people being detained at the border who are seeking asylum. But again, there must be a process
00:34:47.520
for that. There's a reason why those people are detained. It's not because they are being punished.
00:34:52.660
It's because we have to know who they are, where they're coming from, why they're seeking asylum. If
00:34:57.360
it's legitimate, assign a court date for their hearing, figure out where they will stay, check to see
00:35:03.040
if the children that are with them are safe or even are their children or if they are being trafficked.
00:35:09.540
There has to be a process. There must be laws. There must be rules. There must be detainment
00:35:15.500
at the border, at least temporary detainment. For years, we had a catch and release policy.
00:35:22.200
We actually still have that today and I'll get to that in a second. But it says that people who
00:35:27.880
illegally cross the border and are detained must be released into America. You can obviously see why
00:35:35.200
that is a problem. This is still going on under the Trump administration. He has tried to put an end
00:35:41.660
to it, especially through the very controversial zero tolerance policy under Attorney General Jeff
00:35:48.300
Sessions. The zero tolerance policy said that all illegal entry into the United States would
00:35:53.420
criminally convict first-time offenders rather than just facing civil and administrative proceedings.
00:36:01.400
Prior to this, criminal conviction was only for those who crossed the border, were removed,
00:36:05.640
and then crossed the border again illegally. So this policy in practice led to the separation
00:36:12.700
of children and parents. You probably remember the hubbub about this. Previously, parents and
00:36:18.020
children who crossed the border illegally were detained and released together. But because the Trump
00:36:23.240
administration made crossing the border illegally the first time a felony, which meant that the parents
00:36:29.960
were held in prison while kids were under the supervision of the DHS, that meant that the parents and the
00:36:37.000
kids were going to be separated. So the point of the zero tolerance policy was to deter illegal crossings
00:36:43.240
and to end catch and release. The policy itself was not to separate kids from their parents, but
00:36:49.140
that was the consequence of the policy. There was also an aspect of this that had to do with human
00:36:55.780
trafficking. Unfortunately, many children who travel with adults to cross the border are not with their
00:37:02.380
real parents. Either they are being trafficked or because of the policy that has said that children
00:37:09.840
cannot be detained for more than 20 days and must be detained and released with their parents.
00:37:14.880
Many illegal immigrants reportedly use children to increase their chances of being released into the
00:37:21.560
United States. However, Trump did reverse course on the zero tolerance policy. After the media uproar,
00:37:28.720
the administration tried enforcing the zero tolerance policy while keeping the families or the purported
00:37:34.280
families together. But it logistically couldn't work with the laws that were on the books. So the zero
00:37:40.620
tolerance policy effectively ended in 2018. So this was very much a problem. I understand the desire to
00:37:50.120
deter illegal crossings. Obviously, I share that concern and that priority. I think that's necessary.
00:37:56.480
And honestly, if we had a wall, that would be much easier to do. But the indefinite separation of
00:38:02.260
children from their parents is just not something I can support. It's just not something I can get on
00:38:07.400
board with. Again, I understand the purpose of the zero tolerance policy. I do believe that crossing the
00:38:13.340
border illegally should be a felony to deter people from attempting that. If they need to seek asylum, they can do
00:38:20.500
that at a legal point of entry. However, I cannot support any policy that is going to separate a child from
00:38:28.980
their real parent. I just can't do it. I understand the arguments from the conservative side that if parents
00:38:34.160
commit a crime that they get put in jail, they're there and they get put in jail, they are going to be
00:38:39.960
separated from their parents. The child is and parents who cross the border are committing a
00:38:44.400
crime. And so that is obviously going to end in separation. And of course, that's true. But
00:38:49.660
these children, it's a little bit of a different situation. These children are very often placed in
00:38:54.760
overcrowded facilities where they cannot be properly looked after or cared for. I don't think that's the
00:39:00.580
fault of DHS necessarily. I think it's because our system is backlogged and these facilities are
00:39:06.260
overcrowded. But like I said, I cannot support the separation of babies from their moms at the border.
00:39:11.080
I just I'm just not going to do that. Again, that was not the intention of the policy, but it was a
00:39:17.160
consequence of the policy. And the cause and effects are much more complicated, much more nuanced than
00:39:22.260
many on the left would have us think. This was not happening to asylum seekers, but it was happening in
00:39:28.200
some cases where people were crossing illegally. The president reversed the policy and now we are still
00:39:34.680
left with the problem of catch and release and many families and purported families have not been
00:39:39.320
reunified. So the whole thing is kind of a mess. The whole thing was kind of a lose lose. There was
00:39:45.780
also the issue of the conditions in which the children were being detained are being detained at
00:39:52.000
the border. You hear a lot about, quote, kids in cages. There was a picture that was circulating on
00:39:57.940
Twitter. It went viral of kids in these kind of chain linked enclosures. AOC has called
00:40:03.660
the facilities at the border concentration camps. The fact is these facilities, these cages were
00:40:10.600
built by the Obama administration for the purpose of holding migrant children temporarily. Michelle
00:40:17.180
Obama mentioned kids in cages in her DNC speech, and she actually got fact checked by the Associated
00:40:22.780
Press, which is rare. It was her husband who built the cages and first placed the kids there. And the
00:40:29.080
Obama administration also separated children in some circumstances from the accompanying adults in
00:40:35.480
certain situations. So the facilities built by Obama do indeed look like cages, but many of them,
00:40:42.800
many of the facilities that are there now don't. Some of these facilities where children and families
00:40:48.020
are detained at the border have schools. They have lots of activities and more food and shelter than a
00:40:54.060
lot of these people could have ever imagined in their country of origin. I do believe that we
00:40:59.300
should be treating the immigrants, whether they cross illegally or not, as humanely and as
00:41:04.900
compassionately as we possibly can. It's very difficult to do in the situation that we have now because
00:41:10.760
the system is so bogged down and so many of the facilities, even the temporary holding facilities,
00:41:16.620
are so overcrowded. And there's been such a confusion of policy and things have not been streamlined
00:41:23.380
that unfortunately a lot of people are suffering. And that is a problem that no administration has
00:41:30.440
really been able to fix. It has been exacerbated by both Republican and Democratic politicians and
00:41:36.880
presidents. But for the left to say that Trump put kids in cages and those were Trump's facilities,
00:41:42.540
for Michelle Obama to have the audacity to say that when she knows for a fact that it was her husband
00:41:48.640
who built those facilities at the border and placed kids in there, that's amazing. I mean,
00:41:55.180
that's just a trust that most of the media will not push back on you, that Democrats will not push
00:42:01.340
back on you, and the willingness of the public to believe an anti-Trump lie. The public obviously is
00:42:08.680
always eager and willing to believe an anti-Trump lie, when the fact of the matter is, again,
00:42:14.220
that that was Obama, that was her husband. Now, the accusation that these are concentration camps
00:42:22.540
at the border, well, the difference is, is that these people are coming there voluntarily and they
00:42:26.560
can leave whenever they want to. Whenever they arrive, no one forced them to be there unless they
00:42:33.100
are a child or a woman who is being trafficked. But people are risking their lives and coming there
00:42:38.840
voluntarily and they can leave to go back home whenever they want to. So that's the slight
00:42:42.960
difference AOC and what is happening at the border and what is happening in actual concentration camps
00:42:48.140
in places like China, where people are kidnapped from their homes and they're taken to these police
00:42:54.180
states and they are forced to live there. It's just a slight difference. So you see that there really
00:43:03.400
are no easy answers here that both Republicans and Democrats have been to blame for a lot of the
00:43:11.420
things that are going on. The fact is we are a sovereign country. We have to enforce and protect
00:43:16.460
our borders. We cannot allow everyone who wants to come here to come here. People don't have a right
00:43:22.380
to go to any country or to be a citizen of any country just because they want to. Countries do have a
00:43:28.820
right to say who can and cannot come in. And in America, we have had a very liberal and very generous,
00:43:35.740
albeit a complicated and inefficient immigration system and immigration policy. President Trump ran
00:43:42.300
on fixing it and he has tried and there have been some improvements, but he has not fixed it. It's
00:43:48.540
too much to fix in its entirety, maybe ever, but certainly in one presidential term. It's going to
00:43:55.680
take a very long time and a lot of effort and there's just not enough sustained political momentum,
00:44:01.520
I don't think, to do that. That is why, in my opinion, a wall is a very popular idea among a
00:44:07.820
lot of people because it would deter and prevent illegal border crossings in the southern border
00:44:12.960
at the southern border and allow us to focus on processing asylum seekers instead, hopefully being
00:44:19.840
able to house them in better conditions that aren't overcrowded, making the process lighter,
00:44:25.160
more efficient. It would also make drug and human trafficking a lot more difficult. And some of the
00:44:30.480
wall has been constructed under President Trump, which I think is a good thing. The acting commissioner
00:44:35.580
of the Customs and Border Patrol said this a couple of weeks ago at an event in Arizona with the
00:44:40.820
president. He says every single bit of concrete and steel that goes into the ground, the operational
00:44:46.140
capacity of the men and women you're seeing right here goes exponentially higher to stop dangerous
00:44:51.500
things and people from coming into this country. Drugs. What this wall does is helps helps us shape the
00:44:58.140
behavior of the cartels. It puts us in an offensive position. This year, we have seized over a million
00:45:05.900
pounds of drugs. Think about that. This year to date, a million pounds of drugs. And this wall is helping
00:45:11.180
shape the behavior so that we can get better at doing that. We apprehend thousands of criminals every
00:45:16.640
year. Because of this wall, we're able to apprehend and stop these criminals from coming into this country
00:45:21.720
to repeat their offenses. So we have fewer victims of United States citizens because of the wall,
00:45:26.920
because of what this president has provided us. Let's talk about gangs. Every single year,
00:45:31.740
we stop hundreds and hundreds of gangs from pouring into this country, like MS-13, whose motto is rape,
00:45:36.840
kill, and control. Just recently, they use machetes to hack up their victims, and they actually leave
00:45:42.780
them decapitated. That's what we're talking about when we're talking about what this tool, the wall,
00:45:47.220
provides us. And then illegal immigration. Even during the height of a global pandemic,
00:45:52.760
legal immigration continues. And they allow themselves to be put in stash houses that are
00:45:57.500
unsanitary, unsafe. They're put in tractor trailers for days. I mean, there's COVID. There's COVID,
00:46:04.540
but that's like a COVID petri dish. But yet, they're coming across. But because of the tools
00:46:09.340
that we have, like this wall, we are able to stop the illegal entry of individuals that have COVID to
00:46:14.220
protect our citizens of this country. So the wall is not evil. It is not xenophobic. It is something that
00:46:21.140
is helpful, not just for the citizens of this country, but all legal residents of this country,
00:46:27.000
people who are being trafficked. It is safer for the people who live at the border in Texas and who
00:46:34.020
live at the border in various states in this country. It is for the protection of the country.
00:46:40.880
And that is a compassionate and a good thing. That is what the government of this country is tasked
00:46:46.020
to do to protect the well-being and the safety of its citizens. That doesn't mean we can't also
00:46:52.140
be compassionate in who we allow in, who we accept as asylum seekers and refugees. Of course, we can.
00:46:58.620
That doesn't mean that we don't have a border policy. That doesn't mean that we should decriminalize
00:47:03.220
border crossings. That doesn't mean that we should accept everyone in. No sovereign nation can do that
00:47:08.420
and maintain their sovereignty and therefore the protection of their citizens.
00:47:12.280
Now, what about illegal immigrants in the country? How has Trump dealt with them?
00:47:17.680
Obama, he created DACA. You've probably heard of that. Deferred action for childhood arrivals.
00:47:23.160
Obama did this unconstitutionally. He created immigration policy via executive order,
00:47:28.160
which you are not supposed to be allowed to do without the approval of Congress to temporarily
00:47:33.620
defer the deportation of illegal immigrants who came as children or just as minors, not necessarily
00:47:39.380
children. He did not create for them a permanent fix or a legislative fix. He bypassed Congress to
00:47:46.060
make a temporary measure for these people, which actually made them even more vulnerable.
00:47:51.860
Many of the 800,000 people covered by DACA became citizens, but many did not. President Trump called
00:47:58.140
for the phasing out of DACA, which eventually had to happen. Remember, it is called deferred action for
00:48:04.740
childhood arrivals, not permanently banning action for childhood arrivals. So the point of it, according
00:48:10.220
to Obama, was to just give them time to apply for citizenship. And many of them did. Trump said,
00:48:15.960
OK, you've got a few months now where you've got a certain period of time to apply for citizenship.
00:48:21.200
And if you apply for citizenship, we will allow you to stay here. But if not, we're going to have to
00:48:25.480
end this deferred action for childhood arrivals, which was implemented unconstitutionally and was a
00:48:31.080
temporary measure anyway. So the administration, he gave them an opportunity. They could take the
00:48:38.020
opportunity if they wanted to. But of course, the media Democrats, they freaked out about this.
00:48:43.460
And SCOTUS actually ruled this year that Trump could not cancel the order. So so much for that.
00:48:48.560
As far as deportations go, around 337,000 immigrants were deported from the U.S. in fiscal year
00:48:56.340
2018. That was up since 2017. But overall, the Obama administration deported about 3 million
00:49:04.260
immigrants between 2009 and 2016. This is, according to Pew Research, a significantly higher
00:49:10.120
number than the 2 million immigrants deported by the Bush administration between 2001 and 2008.
00:49:15.300
In 2017, the Trump administration deported 295,000 immigrants, the lowest total since 2006.
00:49:22.820
And so that was a lower number of deportations under Trump than Obama had ever done in any year
00:49:28.860
during his administration. So all this to say, immigration is complicated. Democrats and
00:49:35.580
Republicans, as recently as 2019 or 2013, sorry, were united in curbing illegal immigration. Like I said,
00:49:43.620
Obama and his administration were big on deportations, bigger than the Trump administration.
00:49:49.020
Both parties have said we need to stop illegal immigration. We have to secure the borders. But
00:49:55.500
recently, the Democratic Party has shifted far to the left. I think they realized that this is a
00:50:01.120
winning issue for some people and that they will eventually be able to get the votes of illegal
00:50:06.520
immigrants. Many now claim to be against deportation of any kind. They claim to be for the decriminalization
00:50:15.560
of border crossings, meaning that anyone can cross the border and come in and live here
00:50:19.440
as they see fit. Many are for granting voting rights to non-citizens. So this would make us
00:50:26.060
effectively, as I've said, not a country. There is no standard of citizenship, no enforcement
00:50:30.880
of border policy, no privileges or rights granted to citizens. That means to be an American. It would be
00:50:37.920
obsolete. Every country has a right and responsibility to their citizens to make citizenship matter and to
00:50:46.600
protect their citizens. And to make citizenship moot is to stymie America's rights and responsibility to
00:50:53.840
their citizens. The Biden administration is promising to move far to the left on immigration.
00:51:00.220
He plans to do this, to pause deportation for 100 days, to transform ICE and Border Patrol policies,
00:51:06.800
whatever that means. Now, people like AOC and Ilhan Omar, Bernie Sanders, who is on the task force for Joe Biden
00:51:14.040
and creating a lot of his policies, have said that we need to abolish ICE. We need to get rid of ICE and
00:51:19.740
possibly Border Patrol. Now, these are the two biggest agencies, two of the biggest agencies that help stop
00:51:25.820
gang violence in this country and also help and fight against human trafficking. And so it would be disastrous
00:51:32.320
at this point to into those agencies. But AOC would like to do that. And so we don't know the
00:51:38.140
transformation of those policies would look like under Biden, but he wants to take a pause on
00:51:42.960
deportations for 100 days to take a look at what those policies would be. The guess is that he would
00:51:49.860
slow deportation. So he would reverse a lot of the policies that not just that that not Trump has made as
00:51:56.140
far as deportations go, but that Obama made as far as deportations went. And he would be a lot more a lot more
00:52:04.560
lenient towards people who want to stay who are here illegally. Biden says he will reverse Trump's decision
00:52:10.900
to end DACA and strengthen protections for who are called dreamers. He would make them eligible for federal
00:52:16.600
student aid for college. So that means your taxpayer dollars would be paying for the college for illegal
00:52:22.760
immigrants. Again, it was Obama who made DACA temporary. He is the one who bypassed Congress.
00:52:29.080
He could have advocated for a legislative fix for these dreamers, but he chose not to do that.
00:52:35.540
He promises to stop the construction of the wall. And so we heard from the acting commissioner for
00:52:41.000
the for Border Patrol, who said that the wall is helping them stop drug trafficking and human trafficking
00:52:47.460
and gang violence. Well, Biden would make sure that we stop the construction of the wall.
00:52:52.000
He says he would end the prosecution of border crossings for parents. Now, Julian Castro,
00:52:57.680
he says, decriminalize all border crossings. There are a variety of progressive Democrats who
00:53:02.760
believe that. Again, that means you can just come in however you see fit and go ahead and stay.
00:53:08.560
Trump also enacted a travel ban from seven Muslim majority countries. But these were countries that
00:53:14.200
were on Obama's list of dangerous countries that posed a national security threat. And there were many
00:53:19.860
Muslim majority countries that were not included on that list. And so the whole Muslim ban accusation
00:53:26.240
just isn't quite accurate. But Biden says he would make sure that that doesn't happen again.
00:53:30.740
Biden's plan would fast track the citizenship process for agricultural workers. It would expand
00:53:35.860
the so-called high skilled work visa program and make changes to prevent exploitation of foreign workers
00:53:42.440
and displacement of American workers. It would eliminate limits on employment-based green cards
00:53:47.780
by country, which have caused decades-long backlogs for applicants from India in particular. None of this
00:53:56.820
is good for the American worker. See what's happening at AT&T. Now, I am for people coming in to work here
00:54:05.560
legally. I think that that's a wonderful process and very good. I think it's good for the agricultural
00:54:11.060
industry. So not all of this is bad. But lifting those limits and making sure that we can have even
00:54:18.620
more foreign workers than we have now is not good necessarily for the American worker. If you look at
00:54:23.580
what's going on somewhere like AT&T, unfortunately, employers know that they can pay foreign-born workers
00:54:29.040
a lot less than they can native-born workers. And so a lot of these native-born workers, unfortunately,
00:54:34.820
get replaced. Trump, in short, we've kind of already talked about this. He's going to continue to try to
00:54:40.420
curb illegal immigration and forced border policy. He is going to probably try to stop, catch and
00:54:47.800
release while keeping families, true families together. He is going to continue the construction
00:54:53.180
of the border wall. So this is a very complicated topic, very complicated. And as I've said, Republicans
00:55:00.400
and Democrats have failed for decades and decades to do anything substantive. President Trump ran on this,
00:55:05.900
ran on fixing this problem, ran on stopping illegal immigration. And I think that he has helped by
00:55:11.540
empowering Border Patrol, for sure. It has not gone all that smoothly. And like I said, Democrats have
00:55:17.460
gone far to the left on this. This used to be a unifying subject for a lot of people that, hey, we're
00:55:24.160
pro-legal immigration, but we have to be against illegal immigration if we care about our country at all,
00:55:30.340
if we care about citizenship and sovereignty, which I just think a lot of people on the left
00:55:33.940
truly don't. They go on this crazy theory that America is uniquely on stolen land and therefore
00:55:41.100
we're not a legitimate country. And they truly believe that America needs to be burned to the
00:55:45.600
ground, which means making our borders obsolete. I mean, that is disastrous for immigrants and non-immigrants
00:55:52.280
in the country. You have to maintain your borders. You have to enforce immigration policy.
00:55:56.320
You have to protect the safety and the well-being of your citizens while also being compassionate to
00:56:01.500
people who want to come here. So I hope that I offered some clarity to you guys. It's not as
00:56:08.200
as with the other things, like with religious liberty and with abortion, it's pretty cut and dry.
00:56:13.480
It's like, OK, well, one side is obviously against religious liberty. One side is obviously for
00:56:19.580
abortion and the other side is not. Here very clearly is where Trump is and here is where Biden is.
00:56:24.700
This is a more complicated issue, although I would say that Biden and Trump are very far apart,
00:56:29.840
that Biden wants to prioritize the increase in immigration and the decriminalization in some
00:56:38.040
ways of illegal immigration or at least lowering the prosecution or lowering the punishment for
00:56:45.360
illegal immigration, where President Trump is always going to say, you know, I believe in America
00:56:49.840
first and we've got our own problems. We've got our own things that we need to deal with.
00:56:53.380
We love legal immigrants and we love legal immigration, but we've got to deal with the
00:56:58.080
problems that we have and make sure that we are taking care of the American worker and the American
00:57:01.760
family. And I believe a good leader does that. A good leader balances, OK, how many people can we
00:57:08.040
take in with we've got to face the problems that we have right now and fix the system in place
00:57:12.400
that we have that is largely inefficient, ineffective and unfair towards those who would be wonderful
00:57:18.920
Americans and have been waiting to be productive citizens in this country for so long, but have
00:57:24.660
been prevented from doing so because of illegal immigration and so much of the inefficiencies that
00:57:29.340
are going on in our system. OK, so I hope that helped a little bit. I hope that maybe busted some
00:57:34.300
myths and added some clarity for you. If you've got questions, just let me know. I will be back here on