Mr. Donald Trump and Mrs. Hillary Clinton are the two least popular presidential candidates in the last 30 years, according to wsj.com, and with election day fast approaching, this poses a problem for prospective voters. Many Convent of the Sacred Heart seniors will be voting for the first time in this November’s election and are particularly concerned with their choices.
Ultimately, one of these two candidates will inhabit 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and in order to make an educated decision, voters must be aware of the unbiased facts. What follows is a series of articles intended to inform readers and prospective voters of the candidates’ views on major issues. The first topic is immigration.
Mrs. Clinton’s plans regarding immigration reform center on keeping families together and promoting immigrant integration into United States’ culture and society.
The former Secretary of State intends to limit the number of ways in which the US can deport illegal immigrants. She will eliminate three and ten year bars, which are restrictions on illegal immigration. These bars prohibit illegal immigrants from returning to the US for three years if they lived in the US illegally for under a year, and for ten years if they lived in the US illegally for over a year and left voluntarily. According to hillaryclinton.com, Mrs. Clinton will also support President Barack Obama’s executive actions regarding immigration, including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which permits illegal children to stay in the Unites States temporarily, and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA), which permits parents of children whom DACA affected to remain temporarily as well.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, these two executive orders sanction the temporary to prolonged admittance of 4.4 million people. Mrs. Clinton also plans to allow all immigrants, legal and otherwise, to purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, the cost of which will range from low to free depending on their financial status.
She will also welcome 65,000 Syrian refugees into the United States on top of the 10,000 that President Obama has already admitted, according to cbsnews.com. This plan will cost United States taxpayers roughly $1.3 billion, according to politifact.com.
Additionally, Mrs. Clinton hopes to close all for-profit private detention centers, which often keep families in conditions similar to prisons, according to thinkprogress.org. She will also spend $15 million to create an Office of Immigrant Affairs, which will provide free language and citizenship education to promote integration.
“We needed to be very concerned about children coming to this country on their own. We need to end private detention, we need to end family detention,” Clinton said during the Democratic Primary Debate at Miami Dade College, according to ontheissues.org.
Mr. Donald Trump asserts that leaders in this country must prioritize American safety and economic prosperity in terms of immigration reform.
Mr. Trump’s comprehensive ten-step plan to regulate immigration includes enforcing the strict immigration laws that already exist, but which the executive branch has been derelict in imposing, according to cnsnews.com. He then plans to construct a physical wall to prohibit immigrants from crossing illegally into the United States from Mexico. He also intends to terminate the catch-and-release policy that President Obama reinstated this year which prohibits border control agents from arresting illegal immigrants.
Mr. Trump plans to eliminate the 300 sanctuary cities and jurisdictions that are non-cooperative with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) attempts to detain illegal immigrants. In 2015, sanctuary cities rejected 17,000 ICE detainees in these jurisdictions, 68 percent of whom had prior criminal records, according to cis.org.
Mr. Trump further plans to nullify President Obama’s two executive amnesties. He is focused on the rising number of criminal immigrants in the US, a group that encompasses 27 percent of the United States’ inmate population from 2006 to 2010, according to gao.gov.
His initiative to further protect American citizens from criminal aliens and terrorist attacks involves suspending visas from countries that do not currently have credible vetting systems until the necessary systems are put in place, according to donaldjtrump.com. This will include the 65,000 Syrian refugees Mrs. Clinton plans to accept.
“I want a database for the refugees that come into the country. We have no idea who these people are. When the Syrian refugees are going to start pouring into this country, we don’t know if they’re ISIS,” Mr. Trump said in an interview for abcnews.com.
Regarding benefits and jobs for illegal immigrants, Mr. Trump intends to stop providing the free services and “off the books” jobs that entice immigrants to come to America in the first place. He believes that it is unfair to require American citizens to pay into the national healthcare system while allowing illegal immigrants to reap the rewards with cheap or free health insurance. Finally, Mr. Trump intends to make reforms to legal immigration that will serve the American job market and economy, according to donaldjtrump.com.
The two candidates will discuss the immigration issue during the third presidential debate Wednesday, October 19.
– Elizabeth Bachmann, Content Editor