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| Speakers: | Ray Suarez Maria Salinas |
|---|
September 4, 2003
Council on Foreign Relations
Moderators:
Ray Suarez, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
Maria Elena Salinas, Univision
Albuquerque, NM
September 4, 2003
*This transcript was provided courtesy of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions
IRAQ AND FOREIGN POLICY
RAY SUAREZ: And I'll begin tonight's questioning with Governor Dean. The United States is now trying to get help from the United Nations in the form of a resolution to internationalize the mission in Iraq. How much decision-making power can the United States share, while at the same time urging other countries to share the cost and share the risk of being there?
HOWARD DEAN: Well, as you know, I believed from the beginning that we should not go into Iraq without the United Nations as our partner. And in this situation, fortunately the president is finally beginning to see the light. We cannot do this by ourselves, we cannot have an American occupation and reconstruction. We have to have a reconstruction of Iraq with the United Nations, with NATO, and preferably with Muslim troops, particularly Arabic-speaking troops from our allies such as Egypt and Morocco.
We cannot have American troops serving under United Nations command. We have never done that before. But we can have American troops serving under American command, and it’s very clear to me that in order to get the United Nations and NATO into Iraq, this president is going to have to go back to the very people he humiliated, our allies, on the way into Iraq, and hope that they will now agree with us that we were wrong to go— excuse me— that they will now agree with us that we need their help there. We were wrong to go in without the United Nations, now we need their help, and that’s not a surprise.
RAY SUAREZ: Congressman Gephardt, you were one of the early supporters of the Iraq intervention and voted to authorize the use of power there. Touch on those same points. How much authority, how much decision-making power can the United States cede in order to get the cooperation of its allies for the mission from here on out?
RICHARD GEPHARDT: I told President Bush a year and a half ago that if he wanted to deal with Iraq and weapons, he needed to go to the U.N., he needed to get their help, he needed to get NATO’s help. He was not able to do it. He should have done it after we went in. I even told him at an early stage, “You’re not going to need them going in, you’re going to need them coming out.” I said, “This is going to be complicated, difficult and long.” He needs to be there now.
Let me tell you something, we have a president who has broken up the alliances that Democratic and Republican presidents have put together over 70 years. We need our friends. We need friends from all over the world in Iraq now. We can’t afford a billion dollars a week. We can’t be losing all the people that are lost over there. It would be a big difference in Iraq if we had an international force there, and not just American and British troops. He is not doing his job.
When I am president, I will go back to the U.N., I will go to NATO, I will repair these alliances and we will again lead a world alliance against terrorism and the other problems that we face.
RAY SUAREZ: Congressman Kucinich, some of those allies that the two earlier speakers have referred to have already said that the current resolution that’s circulating doesn’t go far enough. Can we keep American civil administration and American military administration as it currently exists and expect the rest of the world to come to the aid of the United States?
DENNIS KUCINICH: I believe that it is time to bring the troops home, it is time to bring the U.N. in and get the U.S. out.
(Speaking in Spanish)
And what we need to do in order to accomplish that is to get the United Nations together in an agreement that provides for the following: first, that the U.N. will handle the collection and distribution of all oil revenues for the people of Iraq without privatization.
Second, that the U.N. will handle all contracts. No more Halliburton sweetheart deals.
And third, that the United Nations will proceed to work with the people of Iraq to construct a government that the people of Iraq can call their own. Under those conditions, the United States can move away from Bush’s blunder, which Iraq will be known as because there was no reason to go into Iraq— at war with Iraq in the first place. And everyone who took the responsibility on this stage has to answer to the American people for voting for that war. I led the effort against it.
RAY SUAREZ: Maria Elena?
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Senator Kerry, who voted for and was a very strong supporter of going to war with Iraq: Now what does going back to the U.N., after we basically told the U.N.--or the U.S. basically told the United Nations that it was irrelevant, what does that do to our standing in the world?
JOHN KERRY: It will raise our standing in the world to behave as we ought to, according to the highest values and traditions of our country, which is to work with other nations.
What we know now is that being flown to an aircraft carrier and pronouncing the words, “mission accomplished,” does not end a war. And the swagger of a president who says, “Bring them on,” does not bring our troops peace or safety. And I intend— I will return...
I believe we need a president who understands how to get it right in the beginning. This is the third opportunity of the president to try to get it right. The first was when we originally gave the authority of force, when he told us and Colin Powell told us they would go to the U.N. and build a coalition. The president didn’t do it. He failed in his diplomacy, he rushed to war against our warnings, and he has now inherited the wind, so to speak.
Secondly, he had another opportunity. When that statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled, that was the moment for a president of courage and leadership to say to the world: Now we’ve done what we had to do, but we want the world to come to the effort and join us.
This is the third opportunity, and it is critical that this president gives life to the notion that the United States of America never goes to war because we want to. We should only go to war because we have to. And we must hold the United Nations up for what it is. If you didn’t have it, you’d have to invent it. And this president needs to understand that.
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Let’s go on to Senator Lieberman. Senator Lieberman, you said in the past that there is not an inch of difference between President Bush and yourself in the war against Iraq. But you have asked recently for more troops and more resources for Iraq— a very different point of view from the president’s. Are you still that close to the president, an inch?
JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: That statement was made, Maria Elena, as we were about to go to war. And what I said I believe expressed the best traditions and values of the United States, which is when American men and women in uniform go into battle, there’s not an inch of space between any of us on that question.
Look, long before George Bush became president, I reached a conclusion that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States of America and to the world, and particularly to his own people who he was brutally suppressing. I believe that the war against Saddam was right, and that the world is safer with him gone. I said last fall and then again in February, a month before the war, “Mr. President, here’s what you have to do to get ready to secure post-Saddam Iraq.”
No planning was done by this administration. I believe it’s because this is an administration divided within itself, and the president as commander in chief has not brought it together.
As president, I would have listened to the American military when they said we need more troops to secure Iraq. I would have gotten off of pride and hurt feelings and gone to the NATO and the United Nations and asked them to join us in securing and rebuilding this country.
I would have brought the Iraqis into control of the country. Let me say this to the question asked earlier: I didn’t support the war against Saddam Hussein so we could control Iraq. Quite the contrary. I supported it so we could get rid of Saddam and let the Iraqis control Iraq. So I would negotiate whatever resolution at the United Nations will draw our allies with us into keeping the peace, rebuilding the country and holding hope that the American soldiers can soon return to their families in peace.
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: (Speaking in Spanish)
Before going on, I’d like to mention that Reverend Al Sharpton of New York had planned to join us tonight. But because of travel delays due to weather in the East Coast, he could not be here.
Ray?
RAY SUAREZ: Let me continue with Senator Graham. Today, the president of France and the chancellor of Germany both expressed doubt about the resolution that’s currently circulating in its current form at the U.N., the U.S. hoping to get international help in the Iraq mission.
How can the United States invite allies aboard and at the same time, share some of the duties if it will not share the authority.
BOB GRAHAM: It cannot, Ray. That is one of the fundamental problems with this administration. It will not recognize that there are consequences to your action.
I voted against the resolution to go to war in Iraq for a somewhat different reason than Governor Dean. I voted against it because I thought it was the wrong war against the wrong enemy, which represented the lesser threat to the people of the United States.
I have been chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee for the last two years. I came to the firm conclusion that the greatest threat to the people of the United States of America, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and the other international terrorists who have demonstrated the will and the capability to kill Americans. That was a matter of judgment as to which was the greater threat.
Today, the question is one of how do we extricate ourselves from Iraq, and I believe the first step in that extrication is going to be to rebuild relations with our key allies. It’s not just Iraq. It’s the Kyoto treaty. It’s the ABM agreement. It is agreement after agreement, which were critical to the maintenance of the victory in the Cold War and now to environmental sanity that this president has rejected. No wonder we have so much trouble getting support when we need it.
RAY SUAREZ: Ambassador Moseley Braun, several of the earlier speakers mentioned that our traditions don’t involve American troops ever serving under shared or foreign command.
Given the situation currently, and given the United States’ effort to internationalize the load, carrying the load in Iraq, is it time to revisit that standard?
CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN: Let me slightly answer your question a different way. Let me mention a name that probably nobody has heard in a long time. And that’s Osama bin Laden— “bin missing.”
We haven’t been looking for him because we got off on the wrong track. And we got on the wrong track in large part because the Constitution’s guidance in this regard— Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution— calls on the Congress to declare war. That didn’t happen in this case. And the resolution allowed this president to go off hell-bent for leather on this what I’ve called a misadventure that has really— now is beginning to come back. The chickens are beginning to come home to roost.
The fact of the matter is, however, that we don’t cut and run. Americans don’t cut and run. We have to support our troops in the field. I think supporting them not only means giving the command on the ground what they need but even supplies. I spoke to the mother of a young man who’s serving abroad, serving in Iraq now, and she was complaining about the fact that they don’t even have the things they need in the field. So we are in a position now in which we have— this administration has frittered away the goodwill, failed to go after Al Qaeda and bin Laden, thumbed their nose at old Europe and the international community, left our troops in the field without the resources they need and put us in a situation in which they have no answer for the American people how we can get out with honor.
It seems to me that that is the challenge. And so I welcome the international community. I am grateful that they are considering some burden sharing here. I hope that it will allow us, within the tradition of U.S. command and control over our own forces, allow us to extricate ourselves with honor but continue a viable war on terrorism that gets bin Laden and his pals and all the people who would do harm to the American people.
RAY SUAREZ: To round out this first section, Senator Edwards, how would you view this effort to internationalize the war? What can we expect from our allies? And how do we share the burden?
JOHN EDWARDS: Well, unfortunately what we see happening on the ground in Iraq right now is part of a long-term pattern by this president. And it’s not just his alienation of our allies in Europe. He’s doing exactly the same thing to our friends in Latin America, in Mexico, his relationship with President Fox being a perfect example.
I actually believe that Saddam Hussein being gone is a very good thing, good for the Iraqi people, good for the security of that region of the world and good for the security and safety of the American people. But I said a year ago that it was crucial— almost a year ago— that it was crucial that in this effort we bring our friends and allies in and that we have a clear plan for what would happen now.
We have young men and women in a shooting gallery right now. And the primary reason for that is because this president had no plan. And now he stubbornly continues to fight an effort to bring others in, to relinquish some responsibility, some control in order to bring our friends and allies into this effort.
This started a long time ago. It didn’t begin on September the 11th and it didn’t begin in Iraq. It began with his unilateral disengagement from Kyoto, unilateral disengagement from the biological weapons convention, a whole series of nuclear nonproliferation agreements.
When I am president of the United States, I will lead in a way that shows that America is strong, but at the same time that we will solve the world’s problems with the rest of the world in a multilateral, coalition-building way that brings the power and force of the entire planet to the effort to solve the world’s problems, because that is the most effective way to create respect for America. And at the end of the day, the American people are safer and more secure in a world where America is looked up to and respected.
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: (Speaking in Spanish)
No matter what your point of view was on the war, whether you voted for it or you were against it, the truth is— the fact is that now we are committed there in Iraq. And nearly every day we hear of one or two soldiers dying, one or two soldiers being hurt. So now what do you say to the parents of these soldiers that are there in Iraq? What is the next step for the U.S.? What do we do with the troops? Do we bring back the troops? Do we send more troops? Or do we keep the current levels that are there? Mr. Lieberman, you have already said that you would commit more troops. Congressman Gephardt, what would you do?
RICHARD GEPHARDT: We cannot cut and run. We’ve got to see that this situation is left in a better place. We have to form an international coalition to get it done. This president is a miserable failure. He is a miserable failure.
I, some days, just can’t believe— it’s incomprehensible to me, it is incomprehensible that we would wind up in this situation without a plan and without international cooperation to get this done. As others have said, we have worked with other nations in the world on the environmental problems that we face, on trade problems that we face, on economic problems, on terrorism, on drug trafficking. We’ve been the leader, we’ve been the one that has put the coalitions together. This president doesn’t get it. He’s a unilateralist. He thinks he knows all the answers. He doesn’t respect others. Look, you got to respect other leaders. They didn’t agree with us. You got to work with them, talk to them, put together the coalitions that we need. That’s what I would do. That’s what he should be doing.
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: But you said we can’t pull out now. So do we send more troops, or do we keep the ones that we have there?
RICHARD GEPHARDT: No, we get help, we get the help that we should have gotten from the beginning. We go to the Turks, we go to the Indians, we go to the Chinese, we go to the Russians, the French, the Germans and we work out a resolution consistent with all the traditions of the American military. We’re not going to turn our troops over to U.N. command. We’ve done this in Bosnia, we’ve done it in Afghanistan, we can do this. But this president has to lead, and he is not leading. He’s a miserable failure on this issue, and he must be replaced in the election.
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Senator Lieberman, you would send more troops?
JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: Excuse me?
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: You would send more troops, Senator Lieberman?
JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: I would send more troops, because the troops that are there need that protection. And we need some of the specialized services that will help the Iraqis gain control of their country, and mean it sooner American troops could come home. Obviously, Americans have to control an international force. But a year ago I called for an international force. You know what I would say to the parents of Americans who are serving there? Your sons and daughters are serving in a heroic and historic cause. They have thrown over Saddam Hussein, liberated a people and protected America and the rest of the world from a dangerous dictator. They are now involved in a critical battle in the war on terrorism, because terrorists have come in there to strike at us and strike at the instruments of civilization— the Jordanian embassy, the United Nations headquarters and the Shi’a mosque and killing Ayatollah Hakim.
These are enemies of civilization, and if we don’t get together and defeat them now, shame on us. This administration let down our troops— let me make that clear— in not having a plan to secure the country, in not having international help, in not bringing in the Iraqis quickly enough, and in doing so, they exposed American soldiers to more danger than they should have been exposed to. As president, I will never do that. I promise you that.
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Thank you, Senator.
Governor Dean?
(Speaking in Spanish)
We are spending more than $4 billion a month in Iraq. Do we send more troops?
HOWARD DEAN: Look, I think the most important aspect and the most important quality for any chief executive when they’re executing foreign policy is judgment.
I supported the first war in Iraq because one of our allies was invaded, and I thought we had a responsibility to defend them. I supported the war in Afghanistan; 3,000 of our people were murdered. They would have murdered more if they could have. I thought we had a right to defend the United States of America. But in the case of Iraq, the president told us that Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were about to make a deal or were making a deal. The truth is, there are more likely to be people from Al Qaeda bombing Iraqis and Americans today than there were before Saddam Hussein was kicked out.
Secondly, the president told us that Iraq was buying uranium from Africa. That wasn’t true. The vice president told us that the Iraqis were about to get atomic weapons. That turned out not to be true. The secretary of defense told us he knew exactly where the weapons of mass destruction were, right around Tikrit and Baghdad. That turned out to be false as well.
As commander in chief of the United States military, I will never hesitate to send troops anywhere in the world to defend the United States of America. But as commander in chief of the United States military I will never send our sons and daughters and our brothers and sisters to a foreign country in harm’s way without telling the truth to the American people about why they’re going there. And that judgment needs to be made first, not afterwards.
We need more troops. They’re going to be foreign troops, as they should have been in the first place, not American troops. Ours need to come home.
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Thank you, Governor.
Ray?
RAY SUAREZ: Senator Edwards, the administration is expected to ask the Congress, and the figures vary, somewhere between $60 and $80 billion to continue the mission in Iraq. Will you support that spending?
JOHN EDWARDS: I think the president and the administration need to say to the Congress and to the American people what this war is going to cost over the long term; how long they think we’re going to be there. How long— you asked earlier of some of the other candidates, what they would say to the mothers and fathers of men and women who are there now and those who have died.
Just a week ago, I spoke to the wife of a young soldier from North Carolina who had died who had young children. And what I would say to them is they have served courageously. They have done an extraordinary job for their country.
But the reason we are in this situation we are in now is because this president has not led. He has not addressed the problem of bringing in others. He has not brought our allies, our friends. He has not gone to the United Nations in the way that he should have. And the very least, it seems to me, that the American people are entitled to is to find out how long he believes we’ll be there and what he believes it’s going to cost. Because one of the great benefits of bringing in our friends and allies is to relieve some of the burden from the American people.
And this, by the way, is the same administration that while they won’t tell us what Iraq is costing and they won’t tell us how much they think it’s going to cost say we can’t afford a real prescription drug benefit. We can’t afford health care for our people. We can’t afford college for our kids. Well, the president needs to tell us the truth about the cost.
RAY SUAREZ: Senator Graham, you’ll be one of the people asked to vote as well. Will you support that increased expenditure, because it looks like it’s going to cost a lot of money one way or the other for the United States to finish and leave in Iraq.
BOB GRAHAM: The answer is yes. I believe that we have courageous men and women on the ground who are putting their lives at risk at the rate of one per day, 10 per day being wounded and maimed in Iraq during this time of occupation. We have an obligation to support those troops.
The president has an obligation to speak candidly to the American people, to answer the questions that have not been answered such as: What will be— with international cooperation— our long-term commitment in Iraq? What will we do about restarting the war against Osama bin Laden, which he effectively abandoned 12 months ago?
What will we do about those countries that pretend to be our friends, who in fact have been our enemies in the war on terrorism? What is our exit strategy? How will we leave Iraq? And finally, who is going to pay this $60 billion to $80 billion? Are we, this generation of Americans, going to pay our bills? Are we going to ask our children and grandchildren to pay for this by adding to an already staggering national debt?
RAY SUAREZ: Senator Kerry, you’ll also be asked about that expenditure. Will you vote to approve it?
JOHN KERRY: I think there are several levels of failure of leadership here. The first is that the president has failed altogether to share with the American people the truth— the truth about the cost, the truth about the reasons and the way in which he is going to protect the troops and the interests of the United States of America.
You ask the question, what do you say to the parents? That’s something I’ve thought about a lot, because I remember the lesson of Vietnam is that you need to be able to look a parent in the eye, if you send their kids to war, and be able to say to them, “We tried to do everything possible not to lose your son and daughter. We did everything available to us.”
I think there’s a failure of leadership because this president did not in fact pass that test in the way he rushed to the war. And I and others warned him not to rush to war, to take the time to build the coalition to do what’s necessary. Why? Because not only do you gain more support for your country, but that’s the way that you best protect the troops in the field.
The next level of failure of leadership is in actually not doing what’s necessary now to protect the troops. I disagree with Joe Lieberman on this. We should not send more American troops. That would be the worst thing. We do not want to have more Americanization. We do not want a greater sense of American occupation. We need to minimize that. And the way to do that is do everything possible, including sharing the power, to bring other countries in to take the burden.
And the final failure of leadership is the failure of this president to understand the world today: the problems of North Korea before they’re a crisis, where you need to negotiate; Africa and AIDS before it’s a crisis, not a matter of a political stop; the issue of proliferation. This president wants to build a new generation of nuclear weapons. I don’t want another generation of usable nuclear weapons. And we have to need the president to say no.
IMMIGRATION AND MIGRANT WORKERS
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: We’re nearing the end of the debate so let’s try to be brief with our answers. We’re going on to the next subject.
It seems like politicians nowadays are afraid to use the A-word, amnesty, as if it were a contagious disease. So let’s talk about legalization or regularization of undocumented workers.
Senator Kerry, would you support legalizing undocumented immigrants in this country?
JOHN KERRY: Absolutely. I supported— let me say I’m not afraid to say it, I supported and was prepared to vote for amnesty from 1986. And unfortunately, the events of 9/11 obviously changed the capacity to do that.
I believe we have to change it. It’s a matter of human rights, a matter of civil rights, a matter of fairness to Americans. And it is essential to have immigration reform.
I want to say immediately that anyone who has been in this country for five or six years, who’s paid their taxes, who has stayed out of trouble ought to be able to translate into an American citizen immediately, not waiting. In addition to that, we have about 37,000 people served in the armed forces of the United States who are legal residents. They should automatically become American citizens for having served their country in that way.
And thirdly, I believe we need to be sensible about the use of the matricula cards. We need to be able to negotiate with President Fox. We have to change the guest worker program.
We have to recognize that there are enormous challenges to fairness in this country. It still costs Latinos too much just to cash a check, to buy a home. There is rank discrimination and we need to apply the laws. And I am going to do that from everything including remittances so people aren’t charged exorbitantly when they send money to their families abroad.
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Thank you. We need to go on. Congressman Gephardt, we know you introduced legislation in Congress for legalizing undocumented workers. Now, there are many voters in the U.S. who feel that legalizing undocumented workers would be giving them some type of an award for having broken the law. Do you fear that your proposal would alienate those voters? And if so, are you willing to take that risk?
RICHARD GEPHARDT: I put the bill in. I wrote the bill with my friends in the Hispanic Caucus in the House. I am proud of that bill. I stand behind it fully. It’s the right thing to do for this country.
We’re all immigrants unless we’re Native Americans, and we need to recognize the hard work...
We need to recognize the hard work and productivity and the loyalty and the military service of people that are in this country and are not in legal status. My bill is simple. It says, you’ve been here for five years, you worked for two years, you haven’t broken laws, you can get into legal status. It’ll bring power and productivity out of all these people.
But let me go back to health care for a minute, I didn’t get a chance on it. Let me just say this...
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: A few seconds.
RICHARD GEPHARDT: Two seconds. This issue is a moral issue. There are over 400,000 New Mexicans who do not have health insurance. Thousands of others have anxiety every day they’re going to lose their health insurance. I think the right thing to do is to get rid of the Bush tax cuts because my plan will put more money in the pockets of the average family than the Bush tax cuts.
Finally, why would we not want to go back to the Clinton tax plan? Why would we want to keep anything of the Bush tax plan? It’s a miserable failure.
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Thank you. Let’s go on to Senator Graham. Senator Graham, in your state, there are many, many immigrants. Of course, we have the Cuban-American immigrants who have a completely different situation. But for those that come from other countries, would you support legalizing them?
BOB GRAHAM: This has to be put in the larger context of our relations with Latin America. This president came to office claiming that he would build a new era of relationships within the hemisphere. He has. Unfortunately, he didn’t tell us that they would all be policies of benign neglect and indifference.
In Mexico, President Fox has been rendered a political lame duck halfway through his terms, largely because George W. Bush did not fulfill the commitments that he made.
In a country, in a commonwealth in which we have had a long historic relationship, Puerto Rico, they have 50 percent higher unemployment, 50 percent higher children without health coverage. And we have not yet solved what kind of relationship that country wishes to have with the United States.
I believe that we should have a policy of earned amnesty for those people who came into the United States undocumented. And that would provide that if they, after receiving a work permit, then met the standards of that permit, after a period of time they would be eligible to get a permanent residence status in the United States.
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Thank you. Congressman Kucinich, is it realistic to think that, in the environment after 9/11, that we could have a legalization program to legalize undocumented immigrants in this country? Is it realistic? Could it possibly happen in Congress?
DENNIS KUCINICH: One of the tragedies of 9/11 is that we’ve forgotten who we are as a nation. In the fear that’s covered this country, we’ve forgotten about the optimism and hope that led so many people to sail under that light of Lady Liberty. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. America must remember where we came from as a nation. And in doing that, we need to extend our arms once again to the world community and bring those, the tempest-tossed, to the United States.
Yes, I’m for amnesty. Yes, I’m for legalization of status. Yes, I’m for broadening citizenship possibilities. Yes, I’m for enforcing the Fair Labor Standards Act and making sure that those workers who come from Mexico have all of the protections of federal law and including universal health care.
Yes, I’m for repealing NAFTA, because there are so many reasons why people left Mexico because of NAFTA. Yes, I am for lifting up the cause of human rights.
(Speaking in Spanish)
RAY SUAREZ: Governor Dean, many of the functions of the old Immigration and Naturalization Service are now included under the new Department of Homeland Security. How do you balance the needs of the United States to both protect itself, during a time of high overseas threat, and process people who want to be immigrants to this country during an era of very high immigration?
HOWARD DEAN: Let me make two observations. First of all, I think it’s important not to use profiling. Profiling doesn’t work. There’s been a lot of studies about it. It doesn’t work in Hispanic communities. It doesn’t work in African-American communities. And it doesn’t work against the Arab-Americans either.
Secondly, I think for 9/11 to have affected our immigration policy is ridiculous— with Latin America is ridiculous. The last time I looked, not one of those 19 hijackers was Latino.
So the problem here is that immigration is a hot topic because people, like the president, use code words like “quotas” to try to frighten people into thinking they’re going to lose their jobs to somebody who is a member of the minority community. And for that reason alone, the president ought to go back to Crawford, Texas, with a one-way bus ticket.
I am tired of being divided by race. I’m tired of being divided by gender. I’m tired of being divided by sexual orientation, by income and by religion. I want a country that’s based on a community again. Yes, we can have a decent immigration policy in this country. But the problem with this administration is they can only think about one problem at a time. They are bogged down in Iraq, they are not defending us from Osama bin Laden, and they are not paying any attention to Latin America, which is the most important hemisphere in American history.
RAY SUAREZ: Senator Edwards, there are communities in North Carolina that probably never imagined in 100 years that they’d have to hire an English-as-a-second-language teacher or have bilingual classes. So your state is being marked by this new immigration too. How do we both protect the country and make it possible for people who want to come here to come?
JOHN EDWARDS: Well, let me say a word about my personal experience with this issue. I grew up in a family where my father worked in a mill all of his life. And when I was young, we moved to a small town in rural North Carolina, which is where I grew up. That town is now half Hispanic.
My family moved to that town because my father, who has a high school education and is still living, believed that by working hard and doing the right thing that his kids would have the opportunity for a better life. These Hispanic families? They came to Robbins, North Carolina, for exactly the same reason.
And those who came and live there, who work hard and are responsible, they have earned the right to be American citizens. But I want to tell you, they’ve also earned the right to something else that we haven’t talked about tonight. We still have two public school systems in this country: one for the “haves” and one for the “have nots.” We have got...
These Hispanic children who live in areas of poverty, in poor communities— we have got to make a commitment as a nation that we’re going to stop this idea of having two public school systems, that in fact we will make a commitment as a nation that every child in America, no matter where they live, what the color of their skin or the income of their family, will get exactly the same education as the richest parent in America can afford for their children. That’s the commitment we need to make as a people.
RAY SUAREZ: Maria Elena?
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: (Speaking in Spanish) About 39 states have already discussed or debated giving undocumented immigrants access to driver’s licenses. The California legislature just approved it and Governor Davis is about to sign it. How do you stand on that?
CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN: Let me say, the amnesty— I would agree with legalization. But the real issue is our relations with the rest of this hemisphere. And this administration has missed the boat altogether. They have turned their backs. We should be reaching out to the rest of this hemisphere. We should be welcoming people to this country. And instead of pandering to fear, as the Ashcroft and— the Bush-Ashcroft administration has done, they have pandered to fear since 9/11 and they use that as an excuse really to shut down opportunities for people to share in the American dream who want to, hardworking people who are willing to contribute— who are contributing to this country.
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Well, what about for those who live here now?
CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN: That’s correct. Well, those who live ought to have their status— ought to be able to get driver’s license, ought to be able to participate as citizens participate. We need to be normalize our relations with documented, as well as undocumented people who are here in the United States. And I think that really moving away from the kind of— again, the fear that has characterized this administration’s approach to these issues is the first step that we have to take.
My late mother used to say, it doesn’t matter if you came to this country on the Mayflower or a slave ship, across the Rio Grande or through Ellis Island, we are all in the same boat now. And this election— this election really does pit which direction our country is going to head. Are we going to put ourselves in a position to move forward, to reach out to others, to resolve these issues instead of having people locked up and their phones tapped and their e-mails tapped and locked up in secret arrests and the like?
Instead of doing that, can’t we begin to reconcile our relations with others, to work well with others at the international community to begin to restore the kind of hope and optimism that has always characterized this country? Because I believe— if I can finish this— I believe the real issue here is our generation’s responsibility to make sure that we leave no less for the next generation than we inherited from the last one. And working together is the only way we’re going to be able to that.
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Thank you. Let’s go to Senator Lieberman. And I want to ask you, Senator Lieberman, how do you separate the good guys from the bad guys? How do you separate the immigrants that come to this country with a legitimate interest in working and contributing and those potential terrorists that are here?
JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: Let me begin by saying this. Immigration for me is not just another issue. It’s me, it’s my family, it’s my familia. My grandparents came here as immigrants seeking opportunity.
It pains me, it outrages me that every year hundreds of Mexicans coming to America for exactly the same reason that my grandparents did die in the desert because of our current immigration policy. That is no longer acceptable.
My wife’s family survived the Holocaust, came here to escape communism in Czechoslovakia, they were welcomed. It pains me that refugees are subjected to a cap and to suspicion of being terrorists, refugees from tyranny around the world today, by the Bush administration.
This can’t go on any longer. I’ve lived the American dream. I know what new Americans contribute to this country. I know the commitment to faith, familia i patria, faith, family and country, that new Americans have. George Bush has been terrible on this. He has used 9/11 as an excuse for not doing what he promised to do in reforming immigration laws. He has let down our neighbors to the south in Mexico and so much of the rest of the world. I have offered the most comprehensive, aggressive immigration reform plan. Yes, earned legalization. Yes, temporary worker visas for workers from other countries. Yes, let’s lift the cap on people coming here for family reunification or to seek refuge. And let’s put some due process in our immigration laws, so the Justice Department under John Ashcroft can’t again do what they did after 9/11, which is to arrest almost 800 undocumented immigrants, put them in jail without charges, without counsel, with notice to their families. That’s not America at its best. And as president, I’ll stop it.
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: I think we have just 30 seconds, if you can please answer, what do you say to Americans about the contributions of Hispanics to this country?
RICHARD GEPHARDT: This country is a melting pot. It’s a fabric. I often quote Martin Luther King, and I say that we’re all tied together. I say we are one people. Hispanic population in this country has defended us. Many, many Hispanic citizens have died in our military without even being citizens of the United States. They’ve won the Congressional Medal of Honor. They work hard. Their families make an enormous contribution to this country. And as I said a moment ago, we’re all immigrants unless we’re Native Americans. And I’ll say it again: We’re all tied together. That’s my philosophy that I’ll bring to the presidency.
Martin Luther King said, “I can’t be what I ought to be until you can be what you ought to be.” That’s what I really believe. And when I’m president, we’ll have policies that’ll make that come true.
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: Thank you, Congressman. Ray?
RAY SUAREZ: Thanks to our candidates tonight.
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