For Republicans worried that creating a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants will simply create 11 million more Democratic voters, Donald Trump has a solution. Bring in more European immigrants.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside of Washington, D.C., on Friday, Trump warned that Republicans are on a “suicide mission” if they support immigration reform, claiming that every single illegal immigrant will end up voting Democratic.
“When it comes to immigration, you know that the 11 million illegals, even if given the right to vote — you know, you’re gonna have to do what’s right — but the fact is, 11 million people will be voting Democratic,” Trump said.
No matter how pro-active Republicans are on immigration reform, they’re not going to win the votes of former illegal immigrants. “That’s just the way it works, and you have to be very, very careful,” Trump warned.
“You could say … that you’re on a suicide mission. You’re just not going to get those votes,” Trump said.
Trump then immediately segued into calling for allowing more immigration to the United States from Europe.
“Now I say to myself, why aren’t we letting people in from Europe?” Trump continued. “Nobody wants to say it, but I have many friends from Europe, they want to come in.”
Trump expanded on this argument, describing personal friends who were educated at American universities and using those skills to help spur the economies of other countries.
“Tremendous people, hard-working people,” he said. “They can’t come in. I know people whose sons went to Harvard, top of their class, went to the Wharton School of finance, great, great students. They happen to be a citizen of a foreign country. They learn, they take all of our knowledge, and they can’t work in this country. We throw them out. We educate them, we make them really good, they go home — they can’t stay here — so they work from their country and they work very effectively against this. how stupid is that?”
Here’s Trump’s full speech:
