Illegal Immigration
On October 31, 2008, Palin told reporter Greta Van Susteren that closing the borders should be the first priority in dealing with illegal immigration. She rejects amnesty for illegal immigrants who have violated federal law. Palin did, however, state that she supported a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
On July 31, 2009, Palin announced in a tweet that she supported a bill by Alaska State Representative Bob Lynn which would forbid issuance of a State identification card or driver's license "to a person who has not presented to the department valid documentary evidence that the person is a citizen of the United States, a national of the United States, a legal permanent resident of the United States, or a conditional resident alien of the United States."
In a December 3, 2009, radio interview with Rusty Humphries, Palin was asked her position on illegal aliens and closing the Mexico – United States border, to which she replied, "We must close the border. They're called 'illegal aliens' for a reason, and if they're not going to follow the rules, they should not be in our country."
On the April 28, 2010, episode of Hannity, Palin expressed support for the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, which makes it a state misdemeanor crime for an alien to be in Arizona without carrying registration documents required by federal law, and requires police to make an attempt, when practicable, to determine a person's immigration status if there is reasonable suspicion that the person is an illegal alien, during a police stop for some other offense. Palin has since endorsed Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's "Secure The Border – Support Arizona" campaign.
On the July 9, 2010, episode of The O'Reilly Factor, Palin again indicated support for a path to citizenship but clarified that illegal aliens should not be "rewarded for bad behavior": "We won’t complicate it any more. Let’s keep it simple, and let’s say, ‘No, if you are here illegally and you don’t follow the steps that at some point through immigration reform we’re going to be able to provide, and that is to somehow allow you to work. If you’re not going to do that, then you will be deported. You will be gone." Palin emphasized that more border enforcement should come first and said that current attempts at reform should "learn from history", with reference to the amnesty granted by Ronald Reagan, which she believed was "botched".
On June 1, 2011, Palin stated her opposition to the DREAM Act, a bill that would provide conditional permanent residency to certain illegal and deportable alien students who graduate from U.S. high schools, who are of good moral character, arrived in the U.S. legally or illegally as minors and have been in the country continuously for at least five years prior to the bill's enactment: "The immigrants in the past, they had to literally and figuratively stand in line and follow rules to become U.S. citizens. I'd like to see that continue, but unfortunately, the Dream Act kind of usurps that, the system, that is a legal system, to make sure that immigrants who want to be here legally, working hard, producing and supplying revenue and resources for their family, that they're able to do that right and legally. Unfortunately, the DREAM act doesn't accomplish that."
On June 15, 2013, Palin delivered an address at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority Conference. She condemned the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 as a "pandering, rewarding-the-rule-breakers, still-no-border-security, special-interest-written amnesty bill." She also cautioned against supporting such a bill merely because Hispanic immigrants have higher fertility rates and said that there were other ways to "incentivize the hard-working, responsible families who want to be in the line, follow the law and become Americans, versus those whose very first act on our soil is to break the law."
Read more about this topic: Political Positions Of Sarah Palin, Social and Legal Issues
Famous quotes containing the words illegal and/or immigration:
“Consider the vice president, George Bush, a man so bedeviled by bladder problems that he managed, for the last eight years, to be in the men’s room whenever an important illegal decision was made.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“The admission of Oriental immigrants who cannot be amalgamated with our people has been made the subject either of prohibitory clauses in our treaties and statutes or of strict administrative regulations secured by diplomatic negotiations. I sincerely hope that we may continue to minimize the evils likely to arise from such immigration without unnecessary friction and by mutual concessions between self-respecting governments.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)