Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said mass migration has “gone too far” and must be addressed with secure borders during a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference this week.
Clinton spoke during a panel titled “The West–West Divide: What Remains of Common Values” while in Germany, where she acknowledged that debate over migration is justified and called for enforcement that is both secure and “humane.”
“There is a legitimate reason to have a debate about things like migration,” Clinton said. “It went too far, it’s been disruptive and destabilizing, and it needs to be fixed in a humane way with secure borders that don’t torture and kill people.”
The remarks mark a notable shift from many of Clinton’s recent positions on immigration. As recently as last year, she echoed prevailing Democratic arguments emphasizing the economic benefits of immigration. Speaking at the Newmark Civic Life Series in Manhattan, Clinton highlighted immigrants’ role in bolstering the U.S. workforce. “One of the reasons why our economy did so much better than comparable advanced economies across the world is because we actually had a replenishment, because we had a lot of immigrants, legally and undocumented, who had a, you know, larger than normal — by American standards — families.”
In 2018, Clinton sharply criticized the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies, particularly family separation. “It is now the official policy of the U.S. government — a nation of immigrants — to separate children from their families,” she wrote on X at the time. “That is an absolute disgrace.”
During her 2016 presidential campaign, Clinton opposed large-scale expansion of a border wall and supported executive actions by then-President Barack Obama that deferred immigration enforcement against millions of illegal immigrants. She also advocated ending family detention as part of broader immigration reform, often prioritizing humanitarian considerations over strict enforcement.
Her 2016 platform included a proposal to expand the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to all families regardless of immigration status. Clinton said her goal was to “expand access to affordable health care to all families … regardless of immigration status.”
Yet even earlier in her political career, Clinton took a more restrictive stance on immigration benefits. In a 1993 congressional hearing, she argued against what would be her platform in just a few decades: “We do not think the comprehensive health care benefits should be extended to those who are undocumented workers and illegal aliens. We do not want to do anything to encourage more illegal immigration.”
It seems Hillary Clinton has now come full circle on the issue.
Taken together, Clinton’s record on immigration reveals a pattern of shifting positions that track closely with the political moment. From warning that benefits for undocumented immigrants would encourage illegal immigration, to defending broad protections and expanded access to government programs, and now returning to language emphasizing border security, her public stance has repeatedly changed with the times. The evolution reflects the sharpest criticism of Clinton that’s followed her throughout her career: that on major policy questions, her positions have often been shaped less by fixed principle than by political fortune and prevailing winds.
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