Transcript for April 9

REP. HAYWORTH: Well, well, that’s what I want to talk about because here’s how absurd the situation has got. And I write about it in my book, “Whatever it Takes.” There’s a situation where an illegal was convicted of assault. He is in prison and he maintains his hope is that he will be able to stay in America because he fathered an illegitimate child. The fact is, the 14^th Amendment was passed and ratified by the states to guarantee citizenship for freed slaves, not the children of foreigners, and we need to take a realistic look at the notion of birthright citizenship.

MR. RUSSERT: But realistically, is it possible to deport 11 million people out of America?

REP. HAYWORTH: Tim, we didn’t get into this situation overnight, and we’re not going to solve it overnight. The fact is, laws follow human nature. That’s why I called for enforcement first, because when you for—enforce existing laws and close loopholes that both unscrupulous employers and illegals are, are utilizing right now, when you do that, human nature for everybody, regardless of national origin, kicks in. And when people say, “Well, wait a minute. The magnet of employment illegally has dried up. And, and the social services are not there. Maybe I’ll relocate back home.” We have press accounts of Mexican citizens who work here illegally returning to their homeland for family celebrations and for holidays. The sad fact is, we have a porous border. This is first and foremost and always about national security in a time of war, and the longer we neglect our borders, north and south, and our ports of entry, the more our nation is in peril.

MR. RUSSERT: Congressman Gutierrez, Thomas Tancredo, the congressman from Colorado, said “The illegal immigrants are a scourge that threaten the very future of this nation.”

REP. GUTIERREZ: And I—let me just share with, with my colleagues here today, look, if you’re here as an immigrant to this country and you’re violating the law, I’ll be the first one to look for measures to deport you. But if you’re here working, if you’re here contributing, I look at this and I say to myself a couple of things. Who picks the tomatoes in Florida? Who picks the grapes in California? Who does most of the agricultural work? Well, eight—first and foremost it’s immigrants. And the vast majority of them, according to our own Justice Department, according to our Department of Labor, are undocumented workers. That’s the kind of work that they come here to do and to contribute, and they contribute in so many aspects of our economy that they’ve become an essential part. So what we’re saying is, let’s do it comprehensively, J.D., so that we can have the kind of border security that you and I agree is essential. But if you’re going to have border security, then what about—the Cato Institute estimates that millions of people come to this country on legal visas and overstay those visas every year. So 40 percent of the undocumented, of the 11 million, didn’t come across the border. What we need to do is to fix a way that we have a biometric card, that we have a way that’s enforceable so that employers know who’s coming here and working in this country.

MR. RUSSERT: Nick Kristof, the liberal columnist in The New York Times, writes today and quotes two studies saying that illegal immigration holds down wages for Americans and in fact, increases the unemployment rate for Americans because the illegal immigrants will do work for a lower wage.

REP. GUTIERREZ: And I’m ready to say that once you incorporate them fully into the fabric of our society, I fully expect that wages will increase, but as long as our Labor Department—and I think this is very important, Tim. Our Labor Department says that each year during the next five years, we will create half a million low-wage, low-skill, very-little-training jobs. Those kind of jobs are going to continue to be created in our economy. The question is, as we have a more sophisticated, more educated work force, who’s going to do that work? The same people that have always done that work, Tim, new immigrants to this country who are ready to take those jobs, bring themselves up by their bootstraps and then their children and future generations have a better opportunity in this country.

MR. RUSSERT: Congressman Bonilla, you are the grandson of a Mexican migrant farm worker. These are the pictures America saw with demonstrators in the street. Some of them are holding Mexican flags. Not U.S. flags, but they’re waving Mexican flags. There they are, person after person. George Skelton in the Los Angeles Times wrote a column which said this, “Democratic consultant Darry Sragow puts it this way: ‘The Mexican flag visually says, “I’m not one of you. I’m from there.” If you wave the American flag, you’re saying, “I’m one of you. Please help me.” The other message says, “I’m going to get in your face.”’” Do you agree with that?

REP. BONILLA: Well, I think when you come here and wave a Mexican flag in our face in a country that’s giving a lot of these people an opportunity that they’ve never had before, I think a lot of Americans are insulted, whether they’re first-, second-, third-, fourth- or fifth-generation Americans. Again, let’s remember that if I went to Mexico and wanted to demonstrate and wave the American flag, you’d be arrested and they’d throw the key away and lock—and you’d never be heard from again.

Again, a lot of these countries from which these people come are fleeing oppressive governments that have never given them an opportunity. I get so sick and tired on occasion from hearing from Mexican officials who talk about how illegals are treated in this country when in fact, they don’t do anything to lift a finger to improve economic conditions for people when they’re in their country. And then when we arrest them, in many cases on this side, they don’t lift a finger to try to take them back when we want to deport them.

MR. RUSSERT: Should the, should the demonstrators lose the American flag—or the Mexican flag?

REP. GUTIERREZ: Here’s what I say. I come from Chicago. St. Patrick’s Day, there’s lots of Irish flags, but we color our river green. We celebrate the diversity. In terms of this debate and this discussion, what I have done, I have gone on the radio, I have gone on TV and I have said, “Check the Mexican, Polish, Irish flags at the coat check. Make sure that you do not give up your essential message, which is that you’re proud to be here in this country and that you embrace that flag.”

Moreover, Tim, hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants, permanent residents, serve in our armed forces and have died and have shown a lot of valor and a lot of courage and paid the ultimate tax to this country with their lives. And I think we should balance that. I think what you’re seeing is kind of a visceral reaction to Sensenbrenner that said, “You’re all criminals and we want you to each tell on each other and deport each other and help the government.” And this criminalization has really brought about this kind. So I would say, check—I understand why you’re bringing them up. I understand the celebratory nature of it, but it doesn’t help in this debate.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me quote from your book, Congressman Hayworth, “I cannot agree with the president’s approach to illegal immigration. We must not surrender to the illegal invasion of our country. A guest worker plan is unfair to American workers and would lead to a permanent underclass of workers separated from the rest of Americans by language, culture and income.” Then let me quote to you from the former chairman of the Republican Party, Ed Gillespie, who writes this, “The Republican Party cannot become an anti-immigration party. Our majority already rests too heavily on white voters, given that current demographic voting percentages will not allow us to hold our majority in the future. Between 2000 and 2004, President Bush increased his support in the Hispanic community by nine percentage points. Had he not, John Kerry would be president today.” Is—are your views risking a broad Republican Party and frankly, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, states that could go Democratic in 2008, because of the perception of your policies?

REP. HAYWORTH: No. I will tell you quite the contrary is true, Tim. As I write in my book, let’s take a look back to 2004. Proposition 200 on the ballot in Arizona, to deprive illegals of social benefits, and it passed overwhelmingly. And as the Arizona Daily Star reported, it passed with a majority of Hispanic votes as well. The fact is, Hispanics voted in greater numbers for Proposition 200 than they did for President Bush, who received 43 percent of the Hispanic vote in Arizona.

But also understand this: We make a mistake politically when we assume the myth of the monolith, that everyone who has a Hispanic last name instantly embraces the notion of illegal immigration. That is not the case, and the fact is we have to have a policy—you know, from the political point of view on this, Tim, you don’t have the have the legislative legerdemain of Lyndon Johnson to understand the one thing everybody agrees on right now is enforcement. That is what should be done, that is what the American people want. You know, you talked earlier...

MR. RUSSERT: Why not do both?

REP. HAYWORTH: Well, because this is not a traditional situation where you can take one from column A and one from column B and live happily ever after. I, I, initially in my book, I was a guest worker advocate. But the more I looked at the problem, Tim, the more I realized that a guest worker plan at this point in time is the wrong plan at the wrong time for the wrong reason, because it puts the cart before the horse, and we end up with a situation like we had in 1986 with the last amnesty: widespread document fraud and an increase in illegal immigration. We do not want to set up a 21^st-century caste system enshrined in American legislation that separates and puts a subclass into our society separated by language, culture and substandard income.

MR. RUSSERT: Here’s how the American people feel, according to Time magazine: Building a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border, favor 56 percent, oppose 40; deporting all illegal immigrants back to their home countries, favor 47, oppose 49.

Should majority rule and, and build a fence, but also not deport the illegal immigrants that are here? Put them on a path by paying fines, paying back taxes, learning English and go to the back of the line for a green card?

REP. BONILLA: Well, that is something that I think, across the board here, we want to do. But again, to dealing with border security, is an issue that—it’s like having a fire in the back of your house that you need to put out first before you talk about who, who you’re going to let in the front door.

Now let me add something to what J.D. was talking about. This issue of border security is not about, about ethnicity. I sit there on occasion with 10 or 12 sheriffs from my district, many of which are Democrats with last names like Reyes, with last names like Herrera and Lucio. And they are crying out for border security as well. So again, this is not an issue about being anti-Mexican...

MR. RUSSERT: So do both.

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