House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who suddenly has become relevant again thanks to a few “deals” with President Trump, tried claiming that the immigration agreement reached with Trump isn’t amnesty because it contains “earned citizenship” — which, of course, is Democrat-speak for amnesty.
During a recent press conference, a reporter pointed out to Pelosi that Trump stated that the deal didn’t involve citizenship or amnesty.
“We’re not looking at amnesty, we were never looking at amnesty,” Pelosi replied.
But then the reporter brought up the prospect of citizenship, and Pelosi responded that citizenship is “in the bill.”
The reporter then brought up Trump’s tweets saying otherwise, which Pelosi simply dismissed.
“I’m not here to respond to tweets,” Pelosi said. “You asked me about the meeting, I’m telling you about the meeting.”
Pelosi proceeded to ramble on about how other illegal immigrants needed to be on an “earned path to citizenship.”
“It’s about who we are as a country,” Pelosi declared. “We’re not having two different kinds of people live here. It’s not even second-class citizenship because it isn’t citizenship. It’s about anyone in the country having to earn the path to citizenship, and that’s what the bill does. It’s an earned path to citizenship.”
Pelosi is obviously trying to worm her way out of calling it amnesty since the word has become a poison pill. Here’s the problem with this line of thinking: so-called “earned citizenship” was also part of the 1986 immigration bill signed by then-President Reagan, and all that happened was blanket amnesty (H/T Heritage Foundation):
Immigrants had to satisfy various requirements along the way. They had to pay application fees, learn to speak English, understand American civics, pass a medical exam and register for military selective service. Those with convictions for a felony or three misdemeanors were ineligible.
Sound familiar? It’s pretty much the same “penalties and hurdles” set forth by the Gang of Eight. Today they call it a “roadmap to citizenship.” Ronald Reagan called it “amnesty.”
The ’86 reform bill also had supposedly “rigorous” border security and immigration law enforcement provisions. So how did that pan out? On the day Reagan signed “comprehensive” reform into law, only one thing changed: Millions of unlawful immigrants gained “legal” status. The promised crackdowns on security and enforcement never happened. Only amnesty prevailed.
So despite Pelosi’s spin, it’s amnesty, and Trump going through with it would be a major betrayal of what he campaigned on.
The full clip of Pelosi can be seen below:
H/T Weasel Zippers