John McCain: Town Hall Meeting 12/30/07

John McCain
Town Hall
Newport, NH 12/30/07

TRANSCRIPT:
John McCain: "[...] First, as I said, we got to secure the borders. Then, as I said, Secretary Chertoff said there's at least 2 million people in this country who are here and have broken laws. They should be deported immediately. Immediately, they should be deported, and they should be rounded up, and that should happen.

"Now, on the other people there has to be one principle, and that principle is no one should be awarded for illegal behavior, no one should be put in line ahead of someone who's entered this country legally, or is waiting to enter this country legally. Now I think it varies with how long a person is here, what their record is. Etc. Etc. But first that person has to, on the day the law is signed, come forward and register as a person who is here illegally. Then their background is examined. In some cases they may have to go back to the country from which they came from. And be screened there before they can come back in. But no one, no one should be rewarded for illegally coming into this country or acting illegally. But you can't round up 12 million persons, the other 10 million people and deport them all at once. So we're going to have to go step by step.

"Again, the principle is, fix the borders so that we can fix the problem without a continuous flow of people illegally into the country. And then do not reward anyone for being here illegally. And if you have a situation, for example, an 80 year old woman who's been here for 70 years. Has a son or a grandson fighting in Iraq. Say, ok, you got to pay a fine. Take the naturalization test, speak English, have a clean record, etc. And then we'll put you in line behind everybody else. And over time you may earn citizenship to this country. [...]"


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Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Tracking
• John
• McCain
• illegal
• immigrants
• deportation
• border
• control