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How the Vice Presidential candidates responded to
immigration issues at the debate
By Eric Gibble
During the recent vice presidential
debate, candidates
U.S. Senator Tim Kaine and
Indiana Governor Mike
Pence engaged in a heated
exchange on immigration.
Kaine reiterated his running
mate Hillary Clinton’s stated
policy positions, while
Pence attempted to soften Donald
Trump’s many radical anti-immigrant
statements.
Debate moderator Elaine Quijano
turned to immigration by noting that
Trump has made repeated remarks
that immigrants are dangerous – although
the facts show that immigrants
are less likely to be criminals
and immigration is associated with
lower crime rates and safer communities.
She asked Pence, “what would
you tell the millions of undocumented
immigrants who have not committed
violent crimes?”
Pence, like Trump, favors an enforcement-first
approach to immigration
reform. He stated that their
first order of business would be to begin
deportations to “make our country
safer, then, we will deal with those
that remain.” Later, Pence elaborated
that immigration reform “begins
Photos Courtesy of Gage Skidmore and iprimages
with border security” and that they
would go beyond building a massive
border wall, which experts have noted
would be economically devastating,
and secure the border “beneath
the ground and in the air.”
However, this enforcement-first
policy has already been the law of the
land for decades. Since the last major
overhaul of the U.S. immigration
system in 1986, the federal government
has spent an estimated $186.8
billion on immigration enforcement.
Meanwhile border apprehensions,
the most commonly used metric to
look at the flow of undocumented
immigrants crossing the border, are
at 40 year lows. Under the Obama
administration alone, more than 2.5
million immigrants have already
been deported.
Additionally, Pence said that millions
of Americans “believe that we
29
can end illegal immigration
once and for all.” Yet the reality
is most of the American
public remains committed
to practical immigration solutions.
72 percent of Americans
say undocumented
immigrants currently living
in the United States should
be allowed to stay.
When Kaine addressed
immigration measures, he focused
instead on the importance of keeping
families together and a path to citizenship:
“I want a bipartisan reform that
will keep families together; second,
that will help focus enforcement efforts
on those were violent; third,
that will do more border control; and
fourth, write a path to citizenship for
those who play by the rules and take
criminal background checks.”
As the topic turned to refugees,
Kaine underscored that a Clinton
administration “will do immigration
enforcement and vet refugees
based on whether they are dangerous
or not, not discriminating based on
which country you are from.” He did
not elaborate on whether any changes
would be made to how refugees
are currently vetted, given the United
States already has robust systems in