Hillary Clinton spent Cinco de Mayo in Nevada, and doubled down on President Obama’s executive actions on immigration while visiting with students who illegally entered the United States.
“If Congress refuses to act, as president I would do everything possible under the law to go even further,” Clinton said. “I will fight to stop the partisan attacks on the president’s executive actions.”
Clinton framed her desired “overhaul” of the America’s immigration system as a family issue. She appears to hope her campaign stop in Las Vegas will help her gain favor with the state’s growing Hispanic population — more than one in four Nevada residents is Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Clinton gathered with students at a roundtable event at Rancho High School, where the majority of the student body is Hispanic. She vowed to help create a pathway to citizenship for those in the country that she knew were there illegally.
She said the issue of comprehensive immigration reform is what sets her apart from every Republican running for president and those considering launching a campaign. She said Republicans that seek “legal status” for unauthorized immigrants really desire to make such people “second-class citizens.”
She criticized Congress for not taking action to overhaul the immigration system, but indicated that she would not let lawmakers stand in her way from doing more than President Obama to legalize unauthorized immigrants. Specifically, she said she wanted to expand the president’s deferred action programs to benefit even more illegal-immigrant parents than previously included in the president’s executive actions.
The roundtable talk in Nevada marked Clinton’s most revealing comments on the issue of immigration on the campaign trail thus far, but did not detail her specific policy proposals. She did mention the possibility that some illegal immigrants may end up paying a fine, but repeatedly vowed to do as much as she possibly could for illegal immigrants within the constraints of the law.
