Thread: Graham Holds Steady on Immigration Stance in New Hampshire

BEDFORD, N.H. — Mar 9, 2015, 2:08 PM ET
By KATHLEEN RONAYNE Associated Press

Sen. Lindsey Graham isn't shy about engaging with Republican primary voters on his support for a path to legal status for people in the country illegally, despite the ire that position draws from many conservatives key to a presidential nomination.

While visiting the early voting state of New Hampshire on Monday, the South Carolina senator said Republicans need to work with Democrats to craft a plan that secures the border and creates a path to legal status for the 11 million people who are living in the U.S. illegally. He says asking those people to leave on their own is not realistic.

"I've got one goal: Fix this permanently," Graham told a voter who asked for his stance on the issue.

"Our beloved Ronald Reagan gave 3 million people amnesty and they did not secure the border, they did not increase legal immigration or change how you control who gets a job," he said. "If you don't do those three things, you will have wave after wave after wave, but if you do these things right that will be the end of illegal immigration."

Graham's 10-minute answer came after he delivered remarks to a business-oriented audience on the threat of the Islamic State and the need for overhauling entitlements.

Immigration has become a sticky subject for Senate Republicans who backed an overhaul bill and is likely to become a divisive issue in the Republican presidential primary. In Iowa this weekend, both Graham and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said people already here should have a path toward legal status. Both are weighing a presidential bid.

The senator said he does not fear the repercussions of sharing his immigration views in a Republican primary.

"All I can say is that we need to fix immigration — it's a national security issue, it's a cultural issue and it's an economic issue," he told reporters. "I am not going to give an inch on the idea."

Graham said Republicans won't get enough support to secure the border and overhaul the legal immigration system if they don't also consider creating legal status for the people who are already here illegally, he said. Calling Hispanics "the most patriotic people I've ever met," Graham said self-deportation is not a realistic or fair option.

He outlined a fictional scenario of a young Hispanic-American man who joins the U.S. military and returns from duty to learn his grandmother is being asked to leave the country.

"He's probably going to have a hard time listening to my economic plan for revitalizing America if he believes I'm the guy that wants his grandmother to walk back to Mexico," Graham said.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireS...shire-29504827

What a bleeding heart for the Mexicans, the b______! No empathy for the American victims, nada, zip, zilch. Typical of what that party has emphasized for 30 years. With that record behind them, why SHOULD I put any faith in them today with the republicans presently acting irresponsible in Congress! C'MON, MAN, give me a break!

I think it is time sellout Senator Graham heard more from ALIPAC.

W

He outlined a fictional scenario of a young Hispanic-American man who joins the U.S. military and returns from duty to learn his grandmother is being asked to leave the country.

"He's probably going to have a hard time listening to my economic plan for revitalizing America if he believes I'm the guy that wants his grandmother to walk back to Mexico," Graham said.

Oh, okay, so the family and relatives of every American soldier can go free now? Is that it Lindsey? What about the real Americans who return from service whose family members lost their homes through a foreclosure and had to walk back to skidrow and the homeless shelter, who were nabbed by DEA on a drug charge and sent to prison, whose spouse got picked up for a DUI, whose father got a pink slip at work and the news he was being replaced with an illegal alien or H1B visa holder? Do you think that guy is going to listen to your "revitalization plan" for America?

Let me tell you something, you empty egg carton, no one is going to listen or accept your looney bull about letting illegal aliens skirt the law and destroy our economy, steal jobs from American workers, deflate our wages and salaries, live on welfare, and bankrupt our nation. No, Sir. We will not accept this, instead we will pound the pavement until our feet are raw to prevent you or anyone else who puts illegal aliens interests above Americans from holding the highest office of our land. There is only one course for illegal aliens in the US and that is a bee-line back to Mexico and every other country they came from.

South Carolina, wake up and get this fool out of the US Senate. There is nothing that he does for your state or our country that offsets the damage he causes by his presence in the US Senate with his bizarre views on letting illegal aliens remain in the US with a pathway to citizenship. Nothing. To think we have to endure this person for another 6 years is enough to make me puke, and in a race for President? Oh my God, please don't let him try to do this to our country.