Failed Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton is one of many liberals who have been harshly critical of the Donald Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” border policy, which has resulted in families being temporarily separated while cases are processed — but just four years ago, she expressed a similarly tough stance on the need to strictly enforce immigration laws.
In a 2014 interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Clinton stated that illegal immigrant children shouldn’t be granted a free pass to cross the border — nor should they serve as one for adults — and should be deported to their home countries as soon as it is safe to do so.
We hear you loud and clear
“We have to send a clear message,” Clinton said in 2014. “Just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay.”
And when if they should be “sent back,” Clinton replied: “First of all, we have to provide the best emergency care we can provide. We have children 5- or 6-years-old who have come up from Central America.”
“We need to do more to provide border security in southern Mexico,” she continued.
Take a look for yourself:
.@HillaryClinton on immigration in 2014: “We have to send a clear message, just because your child gets across the boarder, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay” pic.twitter.com/y1UAbO5AbP
— The Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 19, 2018
Send them back
Likely shocked at Clinton’s admission, Amanpour asked her to clarify: “So you’re saying they should be sent back now?”
“Well, they should be sent back as soon as it can be determined who responsible adults in their families are, because there are concerns about whether all of them can be sent back, but I think all of them who can be should be reunited with their families,” Clinton replied.
Presumably, Clinton meant that children should be “reunited with their families” back in their home countries, since they didn’t enter the U.S. in a legal fashion.
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Clinton’s remarks came during the height of the surge of unaccompanied minors at the southern border during the Barack Obama years, and represented a tough, yet common sense approach to handling the flood of illegal immigrant children into the country.
She later shifted her outlook on that issue to the left, ahead of the 2016 election to placate the progressive base of the Democrat Party.
Though Clinton was talking about unaccompanied minors, her words ring true for the many children separated from the parents at the border as well — and as she now calls for all illegal immigrants to be granted a free pass to cross an open and unguarded border, her remarks just four years ago won’t be soon forgotten.