"If you break our laws by entering this country without permission and give birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship and a guarantee of full access to all public and social services this society provides. If making it easy to be an illegal alien isn't enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that. Right?”
No, those are not the words of Donald Trump. That is a 1993 quote from Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), the Senate Majority Leader from 2007 to 2015. Reid didn't just say this in passing. He introduced a bill on the Senate floor to end birthright citizenship entirely.
Donald Trump did not write the playbook to end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants; Democrats did. But now that Trump wants to end it, Democrats have flipped their stance on immigration completely.
As far as Democrats are concerned, Harry Reid is a legend. Only they seem to forget that he was a pioneer for removing birthright citizenship in this country.
On August 4, 1993, Reid introduced the Immigration Stabilization Act of 1993, which was co-sponsored by Sens. Richard Shelby (R-AL), Duncan Faircloth (R-NC), and James Exon (D-NE).
Some of the key points of Reid’s bill were:
If that looks familiar, it should, because some of these key points were used in Trump’s birthright citizenship order that was just argued before the Supreme Court (I recently did a deep dive on that subject – click here to read that report).
Had Republicans had a spine at the time, birthright citizenship would have been over in this country. But it is yet another example of what Democrats are doing to Trump right now; if one side supports it, the other side automatically opposes it.
Sadly, that legislation never hit the floor and died during debate.
To that very point, in October 2018, after Trump posted about Reid’s previous stance on birthright citizenship, MediaITE reported Reid as stating:
"In 1993, around the time Donald Trump was gobbling up tax-free inheritance money from his wealthy father and driving several companies into bankruptcy, I made a mistake. After I proposed that awful bill, my wife Landra immediately sat me down and said, 'Harry, what are you doing, don't you know that my father is an immigrant?' She set me straight."
If you were to go back and watch Bill Clinton's speeches on immigration during his presidency, Trump sounds almost identical today. Clinton was arguably one of the country’s toughest presidents on immigration up until Trump.
Ironically, one of Clinton’s top guns in Congress was Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), who regularly penned Clinton’s agenda into bills, most notably Bill Clinton’s crime bill (Biden drafted the Senate version of the bill), which is regularly blamed for the mass incarceration of black males in this country.
In fact, in 2019, the Center for American Progress noted that the crime bill:
I only bring that up because Democrats spilled the milk here, but just like everything else, they blame Trump for the “problem” they created.
During Bill Clinton’s 1995 State of the Union Address, he, according to a Fox News report, stated:
“All Americans, not only in the States most heavily affected but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country.”
He continued:
“The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.”
In 1993, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) was on board with immigration enforcement, having stated:
“It's a competition for space. Whether the space is a job, the space is a home, a place in a classroom, it becomes a competition for space. This is a country that's based on immigration. And we all know that. And yet, at times you become so overtaxed you have to concentrate on saying, 'The people who should be here are those who come legally at this time.’ And we've got to, for the time being, enforce our borders.”
All of this is on video (click here to watch).
The party platform for Democrats in 1996 was about enforcing our laws, with the party announcing:
"Today's Democratic Party also believes we must remain a nation of laws. We cannot tolerate illegal immigration and we must stop it. For years before Bill Clinton became President, Washington talked tough but failed to act. In 1992, our borders might as well not have existed. The border was under-patrolled, and what patrols there were, were under-equipped. Drugs flowed freely. Illegal immigration was rampant. Criminal immigrants, deported after committing crimes in America, returned the very next day to commit crimes again."
During that year, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act ( IIRAIRA) was passed, arguably one of the toughest immigration laws on the books.
That law sicced the attack dogs of our immigration and criminal justice systems on immigrants, allowing for the deportation for a simple misdemeanor.
It is also worth noting that Joe Biden supported the Secure Fence Act of 2006. Biden clearly supported not only enforcing immigration and crime bills, but he also wrote them and openly pushed them on the American people.
During the early parts of Obama’s career, he was just as tough on illegal immigration as Bill Clinton. For instance, in 2005, Fox News reported Obama as saying:
“We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently and lawfully.”
During the 2013 State of the Union, President Obama stated:
"Real reform means strong border security, and we can build on the progress my administration has already made — putting more boots on the Southern border than at any time in our history and reducing illegal crossings to their lowest levels in 40 years. Real reform means establishing a responsible pathway to earned citizenship — a path that includes passing a background check, paying taxes and a meaningful penalty, learning English, and going to the back of the line behind the folks trying to come here legally."
This was not a new position for Democrat leadership. For instance, in 2000, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had stated:
"You can be certain that in the Senate, I will continue to fight for tougher measures to reduce the number of illegal immigrants entering this country."
Then, in 2009, Schumer still had the same mandate, stating:
"The American people are fundamentally pro-legal immigration and anti-illegal immigration. First, illegal immigration is wrong, and a primary goal of comprehensive immigration reform must be to dramatically curtail future illegal immigration."
In 2008, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) took a very similar stance to Schumer and Obama. While discussing illegal immigration, she stated that "we certainly do not want any more coming in,” reported ABC News.
Hillary Clinton, who has called Trump every name in the book for wanting to crack down on illegal immigration, was just as adamant as her husband for most of her career on the need to stop illegal immigration in this country.
Hillary Clinton spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations in 2006, discussing incentivizing Mexico to do more to help the United States curtail illegal immigration, as well as demanding "tougher employer sanctions.”
In 2007, during her presidential campaign, she stated:
"I want to know who's in this country, I want to keep track of them. So bring them out of the shadows, if they ever committed a crime, either in the country they've came from or in this country, deport them immediately no question."
Hillary continued to push this position in 2014, with Newsweek reporting her as having stated:
"I voted numerous times when I was a senator to spend money to build a barrier to try to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in and I do think you have to control your borders."
Toward the second half of Barack Obama’s presidency, Democrats started to become more friendly towards illegal immigration. Obama passed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in 2012, and all of a sudden, Democrats went from dropping the hammer on illegals to looking for ways to give them amnesty. That position was put on steroids when Trump announced his candidacy for the 2016 race.
Suddenly, Obama and his cronies had decided that cracking down on illegal immigration made you a racist.
Hillary's camp then did a 180 on her stance, with Jennifer Palmieri, former Hillary Clinton communications director, co-authoring a 2018 Center for American Progress (CAP) Action Fund memo. This called for the Democrat Party to protect illegal immigrants, openly admitting that they are a "critical component of the Democratic Party's future electoral success."
The table below shows you the dramatic flip of the very people who created the playbook to fight illegal immigration to push back against Trump’s agenda:
| Democrat | Then (Quote) | Year | Now | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) | "No sane country would do that... If you break our laws by entering this country without permission and give birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship." Introduced S. 1351, the Immigration Stabilization Act, to END birthright citizenship. | 1993 | Called his own bill "a mistake." Attacked Trump for proposing the same thing. | 2018 |
| President Bill Clinton (D) | "We cannot tolerate illegal immigration and we must stop it." Used term "illegal aliens" in State of the Union. Signed the IIRAIRA into law. | 1995-96 | Democrats now consider "illegal alien" a slur. Clinton's own immigration laws are called "draconian" by his own party. | 2020s |
| Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) | "While Congressman Huffington voted against new border guards, Dianne Feinstein led the fight to stop illegal immigration." Campaigned on stopping illegal immigration. Described 2,000 people a day crossing illegally. Introduced S. 1571, Immigration Law Enforcement Act. | 1993-94 | Opposed Trump's border enforcement. Criticized penalizing sanctuary states. Birthright citizenship comments now viewed 8M+ times as evidence of hypocrisy. | 2017-18 |
| Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) | "We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked." As President, deported 2.5M+ immigrants. Called "Deporter in Chief." | 2005-2015 | Criticized Trump's deportation policies. Framed enforcement as inhumane. | 2017-present |
| Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) | "Illegal immigration is wrong, plain and simple." "I will continue to fight for tougher measures to reduce the number of illegal immigrants entering this country." "People who enter the United States without our permission are illegal aliens." | 2000, 2009 | Rejected Trump's $25B border wall deal that included path to citizenship for 2M Dreamers. Became fervent critic of all Trump immigration enforcement. | 2018-present |
| Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) | "I want to know who's in this country... if they ever committed a crime, deport them immediately, no question." "I voted numerous times to spend money to build a barrier." Argued for "tougher employer sanctions" and physical barriers. | 2006, 2007, 2014 | Criticized Trump's border wall as immoral. Compared detention facilities to authoritarian regimes. | 2018-2019 |
| Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) | "We certainly do not want any more coming in." Supported Secure Fence Act of 2006 (700 miles of fencing). | 2006, 2008 | Called Trump's border wall "an immorality." Stated "a wall is an immorality between countries." | 2019 |
| Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) | Supported jailing employers who hire illegal immigrants. Voted for Secure Fence Act of 2006. | 2006-2007 | As President, oversaw record border crossings. Rolled back Trump-era enforcement policies on Day 1. Halted border wall construction. | 2021-2024 |
This is not about principles for Democrats. Their stance changed the moment Republicans stiffened up and decided to enforce the very laws that Democrats put on the books.
And, as noted in Hillary's staffer's memo, they suddenly realized that opposing an agenda they had made sound as though it was unique to Trump was an opportunity to lock down future elections by protecting illegal immigrants.
As Joe Biden would say, that is not hyperbole; just read the CAP memo because Democrats admitted it all in writing.
