“Hillary and illegal immigration”

The question of whether or not President Barack Obama has illegally side-stepped constitutional boundaries on immigration with executive orders is currently being litigated in federal court. Before he announced a sweeping order halting deportations of millions of people, President Obama publicly proclaimed 22 times that he had no legal authority to gift legal status to millions of illegally present men, women and children. He did it anyway.
Democrat Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has announced that she – Yale-educated lawyer that she is — will go “further” than Obama on immigration if Congress “fails” to deal with it.
An obstacle is the Constitution’s Article I, Section 8 that clearly states: “Congress,” not the President, “Shall have the power…to establish an (sic) uniform rule of naturalization (immigration)…” Despite these words…
She promised a Las Vegas high school audience on the 5th of May that she would go “further” than President Obama has on illegal immigrants. Las Vegas is potentially the key to winning Nevada over far more immigrant friendly Republicans Jeb Bush and/or Marco Rubio.
Hillary Clinton’s actual record starts with lies; for example, she lies that all four of her grandparents were immigrants, they weren’t. Only one was, as a child immigrant.
Record: U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton opposed driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. She never attempted to author/sponsor immigration reform in Congress. Hillary Clinton totally supported husband President Clinton’s 1994 “Operation Gatekeeper.” Before “Gatekeeper,” illegal border-crossers faced problems with “border bandits,” usually Mexicans or Mexican Americans; then came Clinton’s “Gatekeeper” that forced illegal crossers into the San Diego and Arizona mountains and deserts. Result — over 8,000 dead men, women and children. Hillary Clinton has never expressed sorrow for those thousands of dead people who died for the crime of seeking a better life as a hotel maid or busboy or lettuce picker. Or for her husband causing all those dead because he wanted to look tough on the border.
Her Las Vegas audience was at least 70-percent Hispanic, probably 90 percent or more of them were of Mexican-origin if not Mexican born. There were no news reports about her extolling pride among that audience of why they were meeting on the 5th of May, not a word that the date is important in Mexican history or even American history. Does Hillary know that American soldiers fought side by side with Mexicans against the French in Mexico? Probably not.
Could it be that Hillary doesn’t know anything about Mexicans and their history? One would think that Hillary, standing on former Mexican territory and in a city where one-in-four people were either born in Mexico or with parents/grandparents born in Mexico might have said something, but there are no reports that she did.
“Viva Cinco de Mayo?”
The reports were of what she said about going beyond President Obama’s court-challenged orders on not deporting people illegally here and the issuance of work papers for them.
Published reports declare that Obama Administration lawyers have concluded that actions like Ms. Clinton suggested were “not legally available” to President Obama or any President, largely because it would be building one set of executive actions upon another. The pesky Constitution stands between Hillary and her promises to the illegally present and their voting relatives.
Her record on illegal immigrants is clear:
As a U.S. Senator, she demanded their round-up and deportation from New York street corners and work, not legalization;
She adamantly opposed driver’s licenses for illegally-present drivers when she was a U.S. Senator.
Interestingly, she left Las Vegas and went to campaign-dollar-rich California to raise money in a state that grants driver’s licenses to those illegally here as well as public college enrollment and in-state tuition that other states deny and Clinton undoubtedly has opposed..
Other than promising to the United States Constitution, Hillary has never before offered an immigration reform plan as a candidate for President, as a U.S. Senator or as a candidate for the Senate.
In the current congress, for example, Department of Defense bills are being considered that might allow certain young illegally present brought here as children to enlist in the armed forces. Over 50 such enlistments have been allowed this year. Where is candidate Clinton on this Republican co-sponsored legislation?
We don’t know. Hillary Clinton doesn’t take questions at public appearances. Imagine Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, the two most immigration-friendly Republicans, not taking a position on these bills or running on a total anti-illegal immigrant record like Hillary’s.
Her position on illegal immigrants is made clear in a recently discovered audio tape in which U.S. Senator Clinton stated in 2003 she was “adamantly opposed to illegal immigration” and that “people should stop hiring illegal aliens.”
“Simpatico” Hillary never mentions the thousands of men, women and children who have died in the very desert her husband sentenced them to die in that would have lived if people could hire them legally.
That is the real Hillary, not the campaigning “Huckster” Hillary Clinton in Las Vegas.
Contreras formerly wrote for Creators Syndicate and the New York Times’ New American News Service