Hillary Clinton to Challenge GOP on Immigration

Wall Street Journal

By Laura Meckler

May 5, 2015

Hillary Clinton to Challenge GOP on Immigration

Hillary Clinton, making her first visit to Nevada since she announced her 2016 presidential run, will call for a path to citizenship for some 11 million people in the U.S. illegally, and contrast that position with Republican contenders who stop short of that stance.

In 2013, the Senate passed legislation with some GOP support that offered the chance for citizenship for those who qualified. But that bill died in the Republican-controlled House, and GOP support for the idea has dried up. Mrs. Clinton plans to meet with young people at a Las Vegas high school.

“She will say that the standard for a true solution is nothing less than a full and equal path to citizenship,” said a Clinton aide, previewing her remarks. “She will say that we cannot settle for proposals that provide hardworking people with merely a ’second-class’ status.”

That is a reference principally to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the all-but-declared presidential candidate who once supported a path to citizenship but now is promoting the opportunity for a legal status short of citizenship. Even that is unpopular among many GOP primary voters. Critics of a path to citizenship or other legal status say it would reward people who broke the law.

Many Democrats see Mr. Bush as a strong general-election contender in part because of his potential to appeal to Hispanic voters, who overwhelmingly supported Democrat Barack Obama in his two elections. Mr. Bush has long spoken of immigration in welcoming terms, speaks fluent Spanish and is married to a Latina woman.

Mrs. Clinton has supported a path to citizenship at least as far back as 2006, though she has taken more cautious positions on other immigration issues. She at one point opposed driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, though an aide recently said that she now supports that policy. Last summer, she upset some immigration advocates when she said that unaccompanied children coming across the border illegally should be sent back to their home countries.

Mrs. Clinton’s appearance on Tuesday is meant to begin laying the groundwork to tell Hispanic voters that Mr. Bush isn’t as supportive of a liberalized immigration policy as Mrs. Clinton and other Democrats are.

“Clinton will talk about her commitment to fixing our broken immigration system by passing comprehensive immigration reform that provides a path to citizenship, treats everyone with dignity and compassion, upholds the rule of law, protects our border and national security, and brings millions of hardworking people out of the shadows and into the formal economy so they can pay taxes and contribute to our nation’s prosperity,” the aide said.

Mrs. Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate for president by a wide margin, will meet with young people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Mr. Obama took executive action to protect these people among other undocumented immigrants from deportation. GOP candidates including Mr. Bush say his move overstepped presidential authority and have said they would roll it back.

She will appear at Rancho High School, which has a student body that is about 70% Hispanic, the Clinton campaign said.

Nevada is one of a handful of states with large Hispanic populations that have been closely fought in recent presidential races.

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