Former Clinton Administration Immigration and Naturalization Services commissioner Doris Meissner is now a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute. In an interview for this past Monday’s newsletter, Meissner spoke openly about her disappointment with some of the presidential candidates and about what has to be done on the immigration issue. Below is an excerpt of the interview:
Are you surprised by what the candidates are saying about immigration?
I think what I am really sorry about is that the candidates are doing such a poor job of really explaining what some of the choices are that we need to make as a society.
It is particularly regrettable with people like Rudy Giuliani who know this issue very well and who have been in their own political careers in many ways quite progressive on the issue but he is now completely walked away from it. Senator McCain, I think he is being very honest. He is saying ‘I’ve really provided leadership on this issue and I got really pushed down and I got badly defeated, and so I recognize that people are angry and there is going to have to be more enforcement done before we can come back to the bill, to a real solution, but I still believe in the broader solutions that I advocated.’ I mean, that’s being honest, people like Giuliani are not being honest at all.
Tags: Immigration
