Klobuchar flip-flops on immigration ahead of Nevada primary, says English SHOULDN’T be official language of US
Senator Amy Klobuchar has declared that English shouldn’t be the official language of the US, ahead of next week’s primary in Latino-populated Nevada. However, Klobuchar sang a different tune a decade ago.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Las Vegas on Friday, the three-term Minnesota senator said that she has “taken a strong position against” any legislation that would enshrine English as the US’ official language.
“I think that when you look at a state like this state, and a country like ours that is so diverse, you don’t want to have that provision in law,” Klobuchar told the crowd.
Klobuchar’s statement is typical of her Democratic competitors, who have all promised an about-turn from Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policies. Every Democratic candidate pledged in September to grant government healthcare to illegal immigrants and return to accepting at least 110,000 refugees per year, while frontrunners Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have vowed to decriminalize illegal border crossing entirely.
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However, while a statement like Klobuchar’s may play well in Nevada, where around a third of residents are of Hispanic or Latino descent, it is a dramatic reversal of her own position a decade ago.
Klobuchar was one of 17 Democrats to support a Republican-sponsored 2007 amendment that would have reversed President Bill Clinton’s executive order requiring federal agencies to provide materials in languages other than English. Though the amendment passed, the bill it was attached to later died, and the US currently has no official language.
“I embrace immigrants,” Klobuchar told reporters on Friday. However, during a campaign debate in 2006, the Minnesota lawmaker called for “order at the border,” and threatened to prosecute employers who hire illegal immigrants. A year later, she voted in favor of a bill that called for the construction of nearly 400 miles of “triple-layered” border fencing, and a doubling of Border Patrol agents.
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Despite her own history of signing tough border legislation, Klobuchar said on Friday that she disagrees “vehemently” with Trump’s border policies, including his signature and uncompleted “wall.”
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