In an exclusive interview, GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum tells Breitbart News that fellow candidate Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) plan to expand H1B worker visas five-fold would make IT companies money, but hurt hundreds of American workers.
Santorum also said that once current immigration laws are actually being enforced properly and the border is secured, there will need to be an “orderly process of removal” for people who have overstayed their visas – what Santorum says is one of the largest contributors to the increasing number of illegal immigrants in this country.
He said America should focus on how immigration effects the country and Americans, not on what this country can do for those who broke the law and came in illegally.
“Everybody is focusing on the impact of immigration policy on people who broke the law to come into this country in the first place and not on the people who are impacted by the people who came into this country,” Santorum told Breitbart News. “If we have this discussion about the impact on America and the people and how America is effected by this as opposed to … we have an obligation to people who are in this country illegally to treat them a certain way – I think it’s a much more successful approach to be able to connect with the American public and get good policy.”
Santorum has had an immigration plan in place since May – long before any other GOP presidential candidate. He has also long been vocal about the problem with visa overstays, saying that is the largest contributor to the huge number of illegal immigrants currently in America.
“If you enforce the law with respect to visa overstay – which is people that are in this country legally, but overstayed their visas – then we have to put in a processes of which we tell them they have to leave,” he explained.
He said once current immigration laws are in place and enforced properly and the border is secure, there should be a process identifying where people come into this country that would allow them to be tracked in order to make sure that they do leave this country once a visa has expired.
“When we find people and they interact with law enforcement…then, we have to go through the process of removal,” Santorum explained, referring to the process as an “orderly process of removal.”
On the topic of H1B worker visas, Santorum has criticized fellow GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for saying he would increase H1B visas “five-fold” – arguing that H1B visas are what caused at a minimum 250 layoffs at Disney and roughly 600 layoffs at Southern California Edison.
“It’s all about doing things that tech companies like – and I’m sure he’s going to make a lot of money for tech companies and they love that – but it’s not good for workers.”
Santorum was disheartened that companies would have American workers train foreign workers as replacements so the companies could pay the foreign workers roughly 30 percent less.
Santorum’s plan to change the H1B program is to “focuses on the highly skilled workers – not just your basic tech worker.” He argues there are less “highly skilled” IT workers overseas, so “you’re going to have trouble finding 55,000 people that are coming into this country.”
Santorum acknowledged his immigration plan raises “issues that separate us out from the crowd a little bit” as he has been doing several media interviews since delivering a detailed speech on his immigration plan Thursday in Washington, D.C. that criticized Cruz and pointed out that Walker changed his position on immigration.
He said the issue with current illegal immigration is that it is “illegal” and if the laws that America currently has in place were actually enforced, that would largely help drop the increasing immigration that is plaguing the labor market and economy.
“So much of the illegal issue is – guess what? It’s illegal. The reason you can deal with illegal immigration a lot easier than legal immigration problem is because it’s illegal and therefore, it’s simply a matter of law enforcement,” he explained.
However, there are a few aspects of current law he said he would change in addition to overhauling the H1B visa program.
Santorum explained that “chain migration” was a new concept that was put in the 1990 Immigration Act, which said that when a person comes into the country, he or she could not only bring a spouse and children, but also family unification, including parents and brothers and sisters and their spouses. He explained this program should end because it allows a whole series of adults to come into America without having to be individually qualified, saying about 250,000 people each year come to America using “chain migration.”
“It doesn’t make any sense that one person should trigger a chain of thousands of thousands of people that ultimately come into this country,” he challenged.
In addition to stopping chain migration, Santorum wants to eliminate the visa lottery, which was also put into place in 1990.
The visa lottery, as explained by Santorum, is the idea that America needs to bring in people from countries where there are low rates of migration.
“Overwhelmingly, these are very low skilled workers,” he explained. “They come from countries that are in some cases, well, not particularly friendly to the United States.”
“It’s random…Why is this in the best interest of America?” Santorum said, “I don’t believe it is,” adding “some of these countries are pretty problematic.”
Santorum says his position on immigration and the plan he has put forward is focused on putting the American workers and families first.
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