CULLMAN, Alabama — Saturday during an appearance at a meeting of the Cullman County, AL Republican Party, former Auburn University head football coach Tommy Tuberville, a candidate for Alabama’s U.S. Senate seat up in 2020 currently occupied by Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL), was confronted about a Breitbart News story alleging he wanted illegals to fill American jobs.
Tuberville denied supporting any type of amnesty and said building a wall was the top priority. He labeled any claims of supporting so-called “amnesty” as “fake news.”
“I ain’t for no amnesty,” Tuberville said. “If we get that wall built, we’ll talk about whatever we need to do with the 30 million people that are here. We ain’t giving nothing to nobody. If we start that, we’re in huge trouble — fake news. I’ve never even talked about amnesty, so no. We’ve got to get the wall built, folks. If we don’t build that, it doesn’t make any difference about what we do with the 30 million people that are here, and there’s 30 million. Don’t let them tell you there 20-22 [million]. There are 30 million people in this country that are here illegally. We need people to come here to work – we need people to come here. But we need to get the wall up, and we start from there. But we’ve got to redo this immigration stuff. That is priority number one.”
After the conclusion of his speech to the Cullman County Republican Party, Tuberville elaborated on his position on immigration, which was no amnesty and no consideration for immigration reform until a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border was completed.
“I don’t think you can be for anything until you get a wall,” Tuberville said to Breitbart News. “I think the number one problem we have in just listening to people across the state is everybody is concerned about people coming here, taking money away from our kids and families in this country that need it. So, I’m not for any type of amnesty. I’m not for any type of immigration reform until we get a wall up because if you do something before you put a wall up, you’re just going to continue the problem. What we need to solve the problem now is the wall, and then you start on immigration reform.”
“I don’t know what I would be for in terms of letting people come here,” he continued. “But I know one thing – it’s not for giving people the right to vote, break in line for being a U.S. citizen. We’ve got too many people that are in line right now doing it the right way. And it’s not giving freebies away of citizenship to people that are coming here and breaking in line. I’m not for that at all.”
When asked about H1-B visa recipients, Tuberville said there was still a need for workers but maintained the wall was a priority and said those foreign workers should not be given any advantage over others when it comes to earning U.S. citizenship.
“We’re going to need workers,” he said. “That’s an obvious problem. Again, you get the wall up. You give people the opportunity to come here and work for a certain length of time. They pay taxes. They do everything every other citizen does. You give them the right to get out of the shadows, but they work, and they have a time limit, and then they go home. But you never give them an opportunity to break in line to be an American citizen. We’ve got ways to do that. I’m a full believer in doing things the right way. We definitely need people here to pick our crops, work in fields, to building houses, and right now we just don’t have enough people to do that for this country to prosper. Again, we’ve got to do it the right way.”
The former football coach also addressed the employment of consultant Rob Jesmer for his campaign. Jesmer is a one-time aide for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us organization, which is reportedly dedicated to lobbying Congress to allow more foreign workers. Tuberville downplayed Jesmer’s role in the campaign and said he was not influencing his policy positions.
“He’s just running one of my PACs,” Tuberville replied. “He’s not an information consultant. He just a guy working in a situation but he’s not in an informative position.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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