Ben Carson: Obama Using Illegal Immigration as Political Weapon
Wednesday, 25 Jun 2014 06:53 PM
Carson, in part three of a week-long interview with "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner, said the country needs an immigration solution that the Obama administration has no political interest in providing: a formal, enforceable guest worker program for all migrants that will require many here now to leave and re-apply.
"I do recognize that there are many jobs in this country that Americans don't want to do, and that if we didn’t have some others to do them, it could wreak havoc on some segments of our society," said the bestselling author of "One Nation." "I do understand that. But I still believe in the rule of law."
He traced the current crisis — with unaccompanied Central American migrants as young as five filling emergency shelters in the American Southwest — to President Barack Obama's decision in June 2012 to stop deporting illegal aliens who came to the U.S. as children.
Obama made that announcement "recognizing that news would eventually spread like wildfire [to other countries]," said Carson, "and all of a sudden you would precipitate this humanitarian crisis that is going on now."
Confronted with heart-rending pictures of children alone, hundreds or thousands of miles from home, people who question the president's immigration policies are boxed in, politically.
"If [you] say something harsh, then you're cruel and you just don’t care about children — how can anybody be like that?" said Carson, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon. "And if you say something that's gentle and mild, you're for amnesty.
"It's a no-win situation, while the administration sits above the fray and collects the admiration and gratitude of illegal and legal immigrants," said Carson.
With Republicans feeling pinched between opponents of amnesty and a growing Hispanic electorate, Carson said the party should look beyond immigrants or any one ethnic group to "anybody who perhaps has not fully realized the American dream."
"We need to be talking about the kinds of programs that allow people to move up, out of the 47 percent which sunk Mitt Romney," he said. "How do we provide a ladder for people to move out of that situation?"
Carson mentioned a faith-based organization in Memphis, Tenn., called HopeWorks, that helps destitute people turn their lives around by preparing them for the workplace. He also pointed to microlending institutions that make small but productive business loans to people in some of the world's poorest countries.
"Those same kinds of things can be done here," he said, adding that Republicans "really should be grasping these things."
Carson said the U.S., with its 320 million people, can ill afford to leave any of its citizens behind when economic rivals such as China and India have populations of 1 billion-plus to draw on for talent and economic growth.
"We need to develop all of our people," said Carson.
If Carson is talking — and writing — like a potential candidate for office, it's not for lack of encouragement in some quarters. A poll by this week by Rasmussen Reports found Carson and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky as the top would-be GOP challengers to the Democrats' presumptive nominee for president in 2016, Hillary Clinton.
Carson addresses the calls for him to run in the final segment of his extended sit-down with "MidPoint." That interview, and highlights of his entire conversation with Berliner, air this weekend at 9 a.m. EDT Saturday, and 3 a.m. and 8 p.m. EDT Sunday.
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