I've been reading Donald Trump's immigration plan and I think it's all wrong. It is simply impossible to achieve. Right now Donald Trump is, no question, the loudest voice of intolerance, hatred, and division in the United States. He wants to deport 11 million people from this country, 11 million undocumented immigrants. How is he going to do it? He's short on specifics. Is he going to do it by plane? By bus? Is he going to send the army? Can you imagine separating families, breaking off families? And it would create a massive human rights violation for many, many people in this country. So that's something that we simply cannot do.
On the other hand, it seems like he wants to get in the business of deporting babies, of course, by denying citizenship rights to the children of undocumented immigrants in this country. He might not like it, but the Constitution says otherwise. The last time I checked, the Fourteenth Amendment read that “all persons born in the United States are citizens of the United States.” He might not like that, but the children of immigrants born in this country are US citizens, just as he is.
Now, let's talk about the wall. Something like this. Can you imagine building a fence for the 1900 miles between Mexico and the United States? It is absurd! He says he's good with money but he makes no sense, this is a waste of money and time. Let me tell you why: 40% of all undocumented immigrants, 40% come by plane. Exactly. They don't cross the border. They come by plane. They simply overstay their visas.
So I think it is very important that he's talking about immigration, but he is saying all the wrong things. It is not true that Mexican immigrants are rapists or criminals. The last time I checked, two studies, one from the American Immigration Council says that immigrants are less likely to be criminals than those born in the United States and the Immigration Policy Center said the following: “Immigrants as a whole have lower crime rates than the native born population.”
You know, Latinos will remember in 2016. 16 million Latinos will go to the polls on election day. And it's an important number, let's put it in perspective. In the last election, Barack Obama won by less than 5 million votes. So 16 million votes -- 16 million Latino votes -- could decide the election. I always remember that countries are defined not by the way they treat the rich and powerful but by the way they treat the most vulnerable. And in this case the most vulnerable are the immigrants.
