‘Getting rid of them’: Americans discuss Trump and immigration

The most controversial, divisive issue in America today is immigration.

And I brought together 16 different Americans to have this conversation, what I hope to be a civil conversation about the first two weeks of the Trump administration, how it’s handled immigration, and what you all believe and what you all want to see

to in your words, to put America first. I’m Dr Frank Luntz, this is America speaks. Let’s get right into the conversation. To me, Trump has set like set out and done some of what he said he’s going to do. Has he been a little erratic? Has he made some crazy comments? Yes, but that’s so very much how he always has been. The one thing I do feel confident about is the immigration thing, especially here in Chicago.

And why do you feel confident about immigration, because he’s real. I like someone said, like the bad actors. And I kind of like that term. I mean, he is getting, he is

getting people out that do not belong. Yeah, that was me. I I said the bad act, bad actors, because I think they definitely need to go.

And, you know, I was watching on TV the other day and and I think it was New York, and the neighbors were applauding as they were getting them out of there.

Somebody else on immigration,

he’s doing what he said is going to do. And so he’s he’s rounding them up, he’s getting them out. People need to come across from wherever they come from, they need to come legally. If you come illegal, you committed a crime. You should not go to these cities and the red carpet be given to you like you’re a rock star. You need to come over legally. And if you commit a crime, which you’re crossing the border illegally is a crime, then you have to deal with the consequences, so they have to go back. And that’s that. And President Trump is doing what he said he was going to do, so far, so good with that. There are some other things that he needs to slow down with. Chantelle Go ahead. Well, it’s not like other Democratic presidents, like Obama, for example, didn’t do deportations of people that were here illegally. So it’s not really outside of what other presidents have done, but specifically it’s the actions that he’s actually taking, and it’s actually happening, instead of taking a long time, and as well as bad actors that are doing things like burning the flag and doing really obviously bad things for our country that are really disruptive, but they’re here on visas, student visas. So you know, having that list and getting rid of them is really a big deal as well.

Somebody else

as Chantal says, I’m incredibly encouraged to see that those who are in our country on student visas who are guests in our country to here to learn at some of our most prestigious universities that we’re not going to tolerate anti American or anti semitic sentiment. It’s incredibly refreshing

somebody else. I think it just is seen as a matter of action, whether it’s like going to California or encouraging the just to see the border control being able to do their job better. And that’s, according to the people work at the border control is an upgrade over what we had the last four years. So I’m going to ask you, I asked about generically, now specifically on immigration, who approves of what Donald Trump has been saying and doing over the first two weeks of his presidency? Raise your hands.

Well, that’s not everyone, but it’s close to everyone who does not approve. I want to give one voice or voice to those who disagree with it, Dallas and then Daniel.

I mean, it’s excessive, for sure. I also live in Chicago. I haven’t noticed any kind of overwhelming problem with being a sanctuary city or having immigrants around bad actors. I mean, I just haven’t seen it. It hasn’t really been an issue for me personally, I don’t mind it, to be honest. What I was more concerned about was just my cost of living in my day to day is becoming more unmanageable, and there seems to be little to no effort or concern about it being voiced or any kind of action taken down that way. Daniel, you’re up.

I’m not very knowledgeable about immigration, but it seems to me that if some of these people are working here and and paying taxes on what they earn and trying to contribute to American society through their working, maybe there’s another way or path for.

Them to be assimilated somehow into the American populace, I don’t know,

but you would not be deporting them. I would not be deporting them. Yeah.

Anyone else want to talk about immigration and Donald Trump? I like to respond to Daniel,

okay, Jason, go ahead, and then Megan,

if they come You said they’re paying taxes. I don’t know if they are or not, but they have to come into a process. And every time you don’t have a process going the right way, and they do something illegally. It’s a problem. And Dallas from Illinois, which I work there too,

it’s a problem. Immigration is a problem because your tax dollars is going to the illegal immigrants. I agree with Jason. I think it’s important for those who don’t know a lot about immigration policy that most countries in the world do not allow you just to walk in the country, Italy, Denmark, Mexico. In Mexico, you have to prove that you will never need or need any money from the country. I have a friend who has retained residency only because he has a $5 million home in Mexico, extensive interviews so this countries that had have had open borders, have elected far right governments. Sweden comes to mind. And Frank would know more than me, but this is a common issue across the world, and many countries don’t have any immigrants. The Asian countries, for the most part, the Middle Eastern countries.

Jason from New York, yeah, I just want to talk upon Jason and Don were speaking upon of how our resources, across the board, are being invested to illegal immigrants while here in New York, in Manhattan, I live in the center of it.

There’s no There’s no resources being like, redistributed to the homeless population here, and it’s our own people are just suffering while people in our country are benefiting.

Okay, Megan, I promise you’d get in here. Go ahead. Yeah. I mean, I absolutely believe in the legal path to immigration. I just don’t think that the government is doing an effective way of I think that’s why we’re have a problem with illegal immigration. The government isn’t creating a safe, legal path that is effective, and that’s why we are where we are, and I think that we’re actually spending billions of taxpayer dollars on mass deportations. So I just don’t feel very comfortable with the way it’s being managed. Currently.

Okay. Stan, go ahead. I really like what Megan just said. I want to bring up an issue that we’ve heard about for a decade, the dreamers, 70 to 80% of Americans, myself included, support the pathway to legal legal citizenship for minors who came to this country with their parents when they were very young, many of whom have served in our military and our model residents and deserve to be citizens. But I don’t think either party has any interest in resolving this dreamer issue of a class of people who have really done everything right other than the wrong of being brought here illegally when they were young. It’s an example, to me, Frank, of of Washington just kicking the can down the road on this, a rare issue where a lot of people have consensus. Jessica, I gotta go to you. You haven’t said anything on this. What’s your opinion of how Trump is handling immigration.

Um, I’m very confused. As somebody else mentioned, there’s been other Democrats in the past who have also honed in on the immigration issue, but it was a way longer process. It was like Trump had everything laid out and just needed to press the button soon as he got in office, and everything just started moving. What has changed between past presidents and his presidency that everything he’s saying is happening at the drop of a dime. And what’s your answer to that they had outstanding warrants for arrest

to be deported, outstanding deportation notices on these people is my understanding. What I’ve read, I agree with Don these are criminals. They’re wanted for murder and everything else. These are not been a law abiding citizens that have been deported thus far.

I’d like to just

and I think the way that the reason that it’s coming off in a negative light is because there isn’t enough time for people to understand what’s going on or even hear the full details of what’s going on. Everything is just happening at the drop of a dime, so before you can even internalize or understand what you just heard that.

Less than 24 hours ago, bam. Now there’s something else. So you don’t get the time to take in everything that’s happening.

Well, that’s one of the reasons I voted for him. Because he said on day one or day one, it started. He was not lying. He started on the dreamer issue, where kids are brought over, really young, and here they are caught. I saw an interview on the news recently, gentleman in his 30s probably brought over John college like, I don’t know I don’t speak Spanish. I don’t know anything about my home country. So that concerns me, that that needs to be looked at a bit more carefully, as well as the fact that when these kids come, however they get here, and we’re letting them have in state tuition to colleges when Americans are struggling with student loan debt because they had to do it the right way. And if they went out of state, they were paying double or triple the tuition, and we’re just handing that out.

All of those things really need to be looked at. But I think the mass deportation, we need to just pay particular attention. Obviously, criminals. It’s a no brainer, but like these people that were brought over as infants, and now they’re 20 somethings and they don’t even know anything about their home country. There needs to be some sort of program or some way to deal with that. Who here is Latino? Raise your hands if you’re Latino.

Okay, I want to go to you guys, because you have a specific stake in it.

Is it Louis or Louise in Florida,

just briefly, I think on the dreamers. I think there should be a citizenship for them. I think

that everyone else,

I guess, is using their heart more than their logic. When someone comes in and breaks the laws in our country, they that’s a crime, and I think that

anything less than that is just not appropriate. I personally offensive that people try to rationalize

in something that’s good. Coming into this country. I came to this country legally. So did my family, and I, as a Spanish person who’s also 30 years of Democrat, I’m an extremely offensive and I support the current president.

And was your reason for moving to him because of immigration, because of that issue? No, it was a combination of that and mostly economical.

Okay? Carlos, I want to deal with immigration. Obviously, California is ground zero for many of the issues.

How has your opinion of Donald Trump either improved or gotten worse based on how he’s handling immigration so far?

I think it’s slightly improved. Because I think, you know, the former president, Biden, was not really, you know, too strict enough on the borders, like he was just letting people cross through without, you know, them being properly vetted first. And so it just feels a little bit better that he’s, you know, like, kind of, like, close the borders right now and, you know, it’s just, it just, it just looks a lot better now. Do you feel he’s targeting your ethnicity,

not specifically? I think he wants good people to come to this country and become citizens. But, you know, first they need to prove that you know who they are first. You know, like, like they have to be, you know, checked on their background. They have to see if they have any education. It’s just a, you know, it’s a long process. It’s not something that could be done. You know, overnight

Carlos, were your parents born in the US?

No, they were not. Were you born in the US? Yes, I was so do you? Do you if Donald Trump were president? And then do not judge where I stand based on this question, but I have to ask it, if Donald Trump were president, would your family have moved to the US? Would you be here right now if he had been President?

I believe so, because my family, they came here legally.

It was just, you know, it was maybe the process would, you know, it would have been different if he was not present, or whether if he was. But did you know?

Okay, I don’t know such. I’m asking you, Jason,

being Latino

or Hispanic, by the way, do you call yourself Latino or Hispanic? Hispanic being Hispanic. Do you find any of what Donald Trump has said or done problematic to you?

It is problematic to me, because I know we’ve been around the word betting, and Carl’s mentioned betting the vetting process. I hope it’s being done correctly in the States, and needs to be done in it seems.

Like in more Midwestern or southern states, it is, I don’t believe it’s being done in more democratic based states such as California, New York.

And is it being done to your satisfaction? Is this, would you believe the immigration policy should be?

No, it is not being done to my satisfaction, but I’m optimistic that through time, it’ll be effective. Why are you optimistic?

Because this is more action I’ve ever I think any of us have received from a present ever? Okay, any concluding comments on immigration from anyone in the zoom,

I don’t believe that you mentioned you asked a question to cause before that feels like a personal attack towards probably our heritage, ethnicity. I think it there is a bias towards certain countries. I’m fortunate enough that I believe I’m from Hispanic country that would have been affected. My family is from Dominican Republic compared to more South American countries.

And do you think he’s treated the Dominican population in this country fairly? Yeah. And honestly, I think all Caribbean based, even though there was some verbiage explained, but that wasn’t personally conducted by him.

Okay, Danny, I saw your hand go up. Yeah. I mean, I feel like, like a little bit of everyone else, it was a national emergency at the border. I feel like he combated that national emergency, and he’s taking the proper action to do so. So I am happy with him on that front, that he’s that there’s some action being taken, taken. Jason, go ahead and then Chantelle, the issue is really in Congress, and Congress has failed us. And part of the reason Congress has failed us is because we’ve allowed them to but they need to have term limits, just like the president. And this border issue has been a 30 year issue. And you know, people will say Obama,

you know, deport a lot, and he did good for him. Biden left the border wide open. So now Trump’s got to go back and get really some people, but Congress is really the problem in this situation with regards to border security and immigration.

Chantal, you’re up. Well, it’s also not like he’s against all immigration, because I am seeing a lot in the news about having like the h1 v1 like the visas for really highly skilled people in tech and big businesses that could really help our economy by helping more businesses flourish. So I think he is targeting immigration to allow that in a positive way, and then handling the immigration that’s been maybe hurting us as a nation. Okay, you just raised such an important issue before we leave immigration that is an internal fight in the Trump administration between those who support those visas, which is led by Elon Musk, and those who oppose those visas, which is led by Steve Bannon. Can you all opine on h 1v visas and the idea that we should do more to open our country to highly skilled workers? Don Europe first?

I fully, I’m with musk. That’s where most countries do have legal immigration. It’s people who bring talent. It would include universities, doctors at the Mayo Clinic here in Minnesota, use a lot of H, 1b visas, and I believe those have been limited, and that I’m not with Bannon. That this crazy

somebody else.

Yeah, we should, I mean, we should absolutely open up our country to people who, some people who can help it out, and, you know, people we can benefit from, who can, you know, take technology and innovation into a new direction. Um, I’m not with Bannon at all on that. Um,

but

again, like, it’s kind of like a weird conversation, because it comes into, like, skilled people versus criminals, and I think there’s a lot more nuance to it than that. Stanton, you’re up. I support the h 1b, visas, and I’d like to see community colleges and other four year degree programs start offering the STEM education so that we can retool the next generation of American workers, so that they, too, have these skills to compete. Louis, where are you on h 1v visas? I’m with Elon on this, and I think for me, it’s a two fold. I think initially you have to each one be ones, and bring in the talent that we need in our country, but also not neglecting our American

workers that need to also be at that level, and not forget them and just focus.

On on people that are not from this country. So then, first, not forgetting our people also, okay, so we expanding H 20 visas. Yes,

Mike, you’re up. I think it’s easy to be with Elon Musk on this, but

imagine being a worker who has to train to replace their replacement from somewhere else, who’s going to work for half their salary. And that’s how there’s many, many examples of that happening with h1 b1 visas, and also people who want to restrict, whether it’s restrict immigration or deal with illegal immigration. Well, everyone is going to have a story. So the h1, b1, people say, Well, we’re the talented ones. Other people say, Well, we’re going to be doing the physical labor that maybe somebody else doesn’t want to do, and we’re here to study. And we’re here, you know, we had something awful happen our country, and we’re refugees. So if you’re going to listen to everyone’s story, you’re going to have the same level of immigration, both legal and legal that you’ve had the last four years, or 10 years, or whatever it is that people are not happy with, because everyone has a story about what they want to come here, and if you start going story by story, you know you’re not going to have a different policy than we had the four years before that. Lucy, you’re up. I agree 100% what Stanton said in the regards that

I don’t deny or think that there’s not a need for for talented, skilled people. I think it’s also sort of downplaying, you know, I’m so on the fence on this, because I live in Florida, so a lot of our tomato crops and strawberry crops and all of those things is mostly immigrants working because it is a back breaking job to say that that’s less important than a computer technologist. Listen, that’s food on our table. So I think what Mike said holds a lot of validity in that everybody’s story has some some meaning behind it. So I think we should look inside first, if we can fulfill the roles that we need fulfilled, then we expand looking outward, but I think we need to encourage more within we do. I think same thing with Steven said about the junior colleges as early as elementary school. Focus on those STEM focus on what we need in a workforce and develop that within. Jen tell, well, I did read an article that I don’t know about Florida, but states like California and New York specifically, have extended and expanded their visa programs for farmers to come in legally in this country, to be farmers and to help with that sense. So it’s not like expanding the HMB visas for that talent. It’s going to take away from getting in more farmers. It’s just that people saying they’re coming in illegally, rather than taking the legal route of working on our farms, and that’s where I think it’s kind of

not being discussed in that sense, Jessica, you’re up

piggybacking off of what Stanton mentioned in regards to the STEM program here in Virginia, they are actually integrating the STEM program in the elementary schools. My daughter is in pre, well, kindergarten, and she’s actually in a dual language program where she not only learns English, but they’re teaching her Spanish as well, and she’s only in kindergarten. So I think in that regard, certain states pay attention more to the needs of their area and have honed in on that. And then I think some are just still caught in previous times where they are looking for what we know from people, to be from other countries, to come in and save us, versus looking at the abilities we already have from the people we have here. Okay, so when they come to you and your decision is, are you on Elon side that we expand the high educated visas? Are you on Bannon side that we say no to everybody? Where do you recommend Trump goes? I say we say no to everybody. Whoever comes over here, they all should have the same process. Not one person should be better than the next. That’s how I feel. Megan, do you agree with that? I disagree. I do. I think that there is a need for this type of a visa. I think that it is a good legal path, and I think that there’s a lot of positive outcomes that will come with it. So I’m absolutely with must

Anyone else want to make a comment here?

Brandi, go ahead. I mean, I’m kind of like in the middle, like I if you do it, if you come in legally, I’m fine with it, but if not, then no, John, you’re up. I just wanted to say I, I just answered clearly between on this H, 1b, Visa, others have articulated, and I concur, that other forms of immigration that are illegal are should be supported. They don’t have to all be highly skilled people. The H, 1b, visa has been around a long time. I was hearing that Bannon just wants to shut the door to everybody. So, you know, during the Holocaust, we wouldn’t have had Albert Einstein.

In our country,

I think we benefit by bringing people with experience from around the world here. That’s what our country’s been it just needs to be legal. See, I have not heard about this

between Ben and Elon, but I don’t think some should be given preferential treatment to as opposed to others. I think each case ought to be looked at on an individual basis. Why do they want to come here? And I think that’s what it needs to be looked on. That’s it legal.

So I don’t know. I don’t work at the border. I don’t look at these applications. I have no clue what’s on. But I think if they’re doing it legally, then they need to be given just as much

precedence as anyone else. What would you tell Donald Trump to do when it comes to immigration? I’m going to ask each of you,

Louis, you start two sentences for Donald Trump on immigration.

Keep putting our country first.

Carlos, you’re up.

You know, always, you know, run full backgrounds before allowing anybody to enter our country.

Lucy, what advice would you give to Donald Trump? Be methodical and clear in your actions. Mike, when it comes to immigration, what advice for President Trump,

help Mexico eliminate the

you know, all the people trying to come here from south of Mexico, and be deliberate about the people who are already inside here.

Jason,

focus on the hotbed states. First and foremost,

Chantelle, try to find a balance between immigration that helps our country versus immigration that hurts our country.

I would say focus more on a policy that creates a legal, productive path for immigrants TO BECOME LEGAL CITIZENS here,

Stanton enforce the law that people from that everyone, especially from What, what I heard as hotbed states.

Danny,

clearly, think it out and methodically. Think before you take action so fast, just slow it down. You have a lot. You have four years. Just take it easy. You’ll get it done.

Jessica,

every action has a reaction. So please be mindful that we’re looking for you to be in charge.

Randy, he needs to be methodical and

be fair.

Jason, what advice for President Trump when it comes to immigration? My two sentences are one full speed ahead. Jason from New York, what advice for President Trump on immigration?

Focus on the hot fence dates. First and foremost.

John from Ohio, everyone needs to be given equal access within the wall.

Dallas, Dallas, give every human being a fair chance and equal opportunity.

Don I want to narrow up and limit the chain migration for any shirt tail relative of somebody who’s here legally getting in front of line of other people. And then second, I think we need to look at what countries we consider refugees and not. Somalia was a place where people were coming, but now people in Minnesota go back there for six month occasions. So that tells me it shouldn’t be considered a refugee nation anymore. You.