CNN’s Sara Sidner discussed immigration policies proposed by President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump with political operatives from both parties on Friday.
“Another big issue for Americans, and that’s immigration. We see we’ve seen that over and over in the polls as well. Biden has made his latest move to give the undocumented spouses married to U.S. citizens the ability to become legal citizens. Now, Donald Trump has said this about his plans. Listen in,” began Sidner.
She played a clip from Trump’s appearance on Thursday’s All-In podcast, where he stated,
“What I want to do and what I will do is you graduate from a college. I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country. And that includes junior colleges too.”
Sidner then turned to Matt Bennett, a former Clinton administration official, asking why Trump might be shifting his stance now despite his past characterization of undocumented immigrants as “invaders” and “criminals.”
“Well, I think he’s under pressure from his friends in the tech industry who really desperately need people with, you know, advanced degrees. And, the unemployment rate is so low, we’re basically at full employment. That’s very hard to fill a lot of jobs. So I think he’s hearing that from some of his big donors. But I don’t think anyone should be fooled by this,” Bennett replied, adding:
This is a guy who has promised to set up deportation camps. He asked about whether we could shoot people coming across the border, when he was a president of the United States. This is somebody who has separated families at the border and talked about people coming from countries that are nonwhite in just the most disgusting, vulgar terms. So this is maybe one little twist. It’s a thing he adopted from Hillary Clinton, ironically enough. But it is not enough to change what his fundamental policies have been on immigration all along.
