With President Trump has saying that he was” proud to shut down the government for border security” and would take that “mantle,” congressional Democrats see his statement as a golden opportunity to embarrass him, and are digging in for fight over border security.
If we don't get what we want ... I will shut down the government. And I am proud to shut down the government for border security.... I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I'm not going to blame you for it."- President Donald Trump
Democrats, who believe its inhumane to keep out the scores of caravan migrants amassed at the U.S. Southern border, are refusing to authorize the $5 billion needed to build Trump’s wall.
Potential presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (D), who is on record of opposing an open borders immigration policy, doesn’t believe that a border wall is needed, and like many of his Democratic colleagues in the U.S. Congress, appears to support lax, pro-Immigrant reform.
While Democrats are quick to attack the Trump Administration’s hawkish immigration policies and push for a border security wall, one of the most prominent leaders of the Democratic Party, former President Bill Clinton, all-but supported Trump’s immigration policies when he was president.
In 1995, then-President Clinton made the case for a border wall and for deportation of illegal immigrants, stating to congress that it was “self-defeating for a nation of immigrants” to allow for immigration laws to be broken.
“All Americans, not only in the States most heavily affected but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country… That's why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens.
We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.”- President Bill Clinton
