Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton argued Monday that one “legitimate concern” she has about current immigration policy is not that illegal immigrants are able to take jobs from U.S. citizens and legal residents, but that these immigrants are sometimes exploited by U.S. companies who can make them work more cheaply.
She said immigration reform would help ensure these non-citizens can safely hold jobs in the United States, and be protected from exploitation.
“There are people who say with … real feeling and evidence that they believe that either they or somebody they know lost a job, didn’t get a job because an undocumented worker got it,” Clinton told supporters in Iowa on Monday. “Of course, but undocumented workers can be paid less and exploited more, which is why disreputable situations arise where people have been mistreated, and sometimes not even paid for their labor at the end of their workday or week.”
“The answer to that, in my view, is to have this path to citizenship, so that the labor market can be regulated, and nobody, American citizen or somebody on the path to citizenship, can be exploited,” she said. “Their wages can’t be stolen, they can’t be mistreated on the job. That is why I believe comprehensive immigration reform would be good for our economy and good for American workers.”
Clinton’s argument highlights the divide between Democrats and Republicans over immigration that’s been seen for the last few years. Many Republicans say the government needs to do a better job keeping illegal immigrants from entering the United States, in order to protect jobs held by Americans.
Members like Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., have argued for months that wages in the U.S. have fallen in response to the 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants now in the country.
Some Republicans have said the government needs to begin deporting illegal immigrants, and only give people a shot at U.S. citizenship if they use the process available to them. On Monday, Clinton rejected that as an answer.
“That is absolutely undoable, unaffordable, will never happen,” she said. “If it makes people on the other side of the aisle feel good, I suppose there’s a political purpose to it, but it is a wrong-headed proposal.”
Elsewhere, Clinton used her remarks to reiterate that the country would do better under a Democratic president.
“I will tell you without trying to be either partisan or personal, our country does better in the economy when we have a Democrat in the White House,” she said. “That’s just a fact. It’s an inconvenient fact for the other side, but that’s a fact. Employment, income, stock market, it’s all better.”
She also summarized her time as secretary of state, and said it’s given her the experience to lead.
“I negotiated a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza,” she said. “I put together the coalition that came up with the sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table. I know what we have to do to protection our country, to protect our security, and to meet the big challenges.”
