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Flashback: Obama Said Illegals Should Learn English, Go to 'Back of the Line'

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In their never-ending attacks on President Donald Trump, liberals have, among other things, been quick to label him a “racist” for his talk of building a wall along the southern border of the United States.

Trump’s goal is exactly the kind of border security former President Barack Obama talked about during his years in office, though Obama talked doing it with more “boots on the ground” and by “using technology more effectively.”

The Border Patrol under Obama also took many of the same measures it’s taking under Trump.

In 2013, RealClearPolitics posted a summary and transcript of then-President Obama’s weekly address. In it, he spoke about immigration in a way that echoes what Trump now says.

It is also a very different pitch from the one the Democrats claim to want or support today — only five years later.

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In fact, it is the kind of pitch people get called a “racist” for making now that a Republican named Trump is in the White House:

From the transcript, the relevant portions of Obama’s address regarding immigration reform are as follows:

“This bill would provide a pathway to earned citizenship for the 11 million individuals who are in this country illegally, a pathway that includes passing a background check, learning English, paying taxes and a penalty, and then going to the back of the line behind everyone who’s playing by the rules and trying to come here legally.”

Do you believe the wall on our southern border should be built?

Now look at how he then attacked the naysayers for “playing politics.”

“We know the opponents of reform are going to do everything they can to prevent that. They’ll try to stoke fear and create division.

“They’ll try to play politics with an issue that the vast majority of Americans want addressed. And if they succeed, we will lose this chance to finally fix an immigration system that is badly broken.”

So, in his message, Obama speaks of illegal aliens given a chance to be here anyway needing to learn English. He also says they need to go to the back of the line, behind those who came here legally.

Now compare that to how Trump is hit for wanting to build a wall or put legal immigrants ahead of illegal aliens. The left now pushes for illegal aliens to be given rights, and aid, and to get bumped to the front of the line.

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And learning English to be here? Well, you must be a “racist” to call for that.

And in their attacks, liberals are doing exactly what Obama said then the naysayers would do, despite the majority of Americans wanting something addressed: Stoke fear, play politics, and create division.

Polling reveals something the majority of Americans want addressed, which is the wall being built. In August 2015, Newsmax reported that the majority of Americans wanted a wall built to keep out illegal aliens. That was based on a Rasmussen Reports survey of 1,000 likely voters.

Fifty-one percent wanted the wall, versus 37 percent against building it. Perhaps you’ve heard the opposite. There is a reason for that.

In September 2017, journalist Sharyl Attkission wrote an opinion piece for The Hill that explained how more “Americans support the border wall than the media wants to believe.”

She explained that: “Polls have been consistently unrepresentative of the electorate since Trump entered the political stage.” She added that such a thing is accomplished with word games played in the polling questions.

One example is by asking opinions about things never proposed. Another tactic is to lean heavily in one political direction, such as polling far more Democrats than Republicans.

This is how, despite actual American sentiment, so many polls are published claiming the opposite. You have to dig into what they asked and who they asked to start getting to the truth.

Then we have the CBS News Battleground Tracker poll from June of this year.

A whopping 48 percent didn’t want families entering illegally into the United States to stay here, but to be released back to their home country together. Only 21 percent said they should be released temporarily into the U.S. pending a hearing.

This sentiment matches what Trump is pushing for with detain and deport. It does not match the free-for-all, everyone-can-come-in approach pushed by the left.

And while 48 percent of those surveyed said a wall was a bad idea, 51 percent called it a good idea. Of those, 32 percent believed it could be completed and 19 percent thought even if it couldn’t be completed it should still be attempted.

So, if Trump is racist for wanting a wall built, so is the majority of America. If Trump is racist for wanting immigrants to speak English, so is Barack Obama. And if Trump is racist for wanting legal immigrants to come ahead of illegal aliens, Obama is, too.

But the aims of open borders and unrestricted immigration spoken of by the left these days don’t match actual common sense or American majority sentiment. What they do match is a basic, Trump-bashing fest, disagreeing with everything he says and being divisive every step of the way.

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