Kirsten Gillibrand: "family reunification is a core value of America"

Mark Green and the Huffington Post conducted an interview with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and as one might imagine, they simply asked puffballs and failed to follow-up (huffingtonpost.com/mark-green/7-days-kirsten-gillibrand_b_166955.html). That includes the part where she said that "family reunification is a core value of America". In fact, such chain migration has only been a core part of our laws since around 1965 (link).

She also continues to think she could solve the eight year legal immigration backlog in six months; see this and this.

The rest of her statement could have been made by any other amnesty-supporting puppet and is included below.

Well, the Senate bill had a lot of flaws. So, we need a lot of work on a comprehensive immigration strategy. One of the biggest flaws of the bill was that it accepted that, for family reunification, an eight year backlog was acceptable. To me, that's outrageous. Why would you say you're doing immigration reform and not solve that issue? What you should have is to hire the right number of lawyers and caseworkers, have infrastructure in place so you can get that backlog done within six months. Immigration is part of our nation's heritage. Our country was built on immigrants. We have so much richness in our culture and in our traditions because of our immigrant populations. Family reunification is a core value of America, and it's something that we should solve.

The second issue that I felt was very problematic was if we're going to have a guest worker program, then you need to have one that is going to work. Immigrant communities are very vibrant and essential for our economy and for many, many industries. I happen to know a lot about farming. So, in that regard, we need to right-size immigration. We need to know how many visas we need in this country and have the right number and have a system that actually allows for an immigration system that works, and works for everyone. So, I will work with the President on a comprehensive immigration plan... Whether it's similar to what the Senate bill had, whether it's learning English, paying back fines, paying back taxes, having a job training opportunity, whatever the President wants to do, I will work with him in that regard. I think we do need t o solve the problem in a comprehensive way so that we can have a system that works and works for everyone.

Sat, 02/14/2009 - 10:22 · · Importance: 4