The Daily Caller reported on Carly Fiorina’s recent appearance on Laura Ingraham’s radio show. Ingraham asked Fiorina for her opinion on Jeb Bush’s immigration plan, and his recent comments about it:
“Jeb Bush was out there talking the other day talking about how his approach to immigration, I guess, in comparison to all of your thoughts on it is the ‘grown-up plan,’” Ingraham told Fiorina. “What’s your reaction to that?”
“I don’t think it’s very helpful when people question other’s motivations just because they disagree with them,” Fiorina responded. “I don’t think it’s a fair plan to say that people who have come here illegally and have stayed here illegally can earn the same privileges, that is the privilege of citizenship, as someone who has played by the rules and taken all the time and taken all the tests and earned citizenship.”
“I don’t think that’s fair,” Fiorina continued. “I think a lot of Americans care very much about fairness, and that doesn’t make them immature, and it doesn’t make them lacking in compassion. It makes them people like me, who understand that while we are a compassionate nation, we are also a nation that believes in fairness.”
Fiorina does make a legitimate argument: allowing illegal immigrants to receive citizenship wouldn’t be fair to immigrants who came into the country legally and filed for citizenship through the proper channels. However, there needs to be a plan for how to address the large population of illegal immigrants who are established in the United States. So, while a President Fiorina would not be in favor of a path to citizenship, I would hope that a President Fiorina would be in favor of a path to permanent residency. Allowing illegal immigrants to go through a process that would result in a green card would, in my opinion, strike an acceptable balance between “fair” and “compassionate.”
Joshua Pinho works for American Principles in Action.
