Donald Trump has brought the Republican Party to "a Waterloo politically" over illegal immigration, Dan Stein, president of Federation for American Immigration Reform, told
Newsmax TV on Wednesday.
"You have the business wing that wants cheap labor, and then you have rank-and-file Republicans," Stein told "Newsmax Prime" host Ric Blackwell. "The Republican Party's going to have to decide where it sits on this issue — because in the end, if Donald Trump bolts the party and decides to run as an independent, it's a greater threat obviously to the Republican candidate than to the Democrat.
"Either the Republican Party decides to establish itself at variance with the Democratic position, which is to destroy immigrant limits and controls," he added. "Or, they're going to join with the Democrats in sanctioning what is ongoing immigration anarchy.
"So, ultimately, Donald Trump, whatever happens to his campaign, is setting the marker on the immigration issue," Stein said.
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But stopping illegals in America requires more than building a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, said retired Immigration and Naturalization Service special agent Michael Cutler.
"The immigration system has 50 border states," he told Blackwell. "You really need meaningful interior enforcement.
"You can't win a baseball game if you have the outfielders sit out the game. You can't approach this problem of illegal immigration without meaningful interior enforcement."
Both political parties have benefited from illegal immigration, Cutler added.
"It was Jimmy Carter who said we couldn't use the term 'illegal aliens' to describe illegal aliens, and the term 'aliens' simply means any person who's not a citizen of the United States," he said. "It was [Ronald] Reagan who gave us the first amnesty, never hired enough agents.
"It's been both sides of the aisle," he added. "Too many people are feeding at a very deep and lucrative trough and Americans are paying the price in many ways.
"We're bleeding red and green. It's the jobs. It's the money being sent out of the country by foreign workers — and it's the Americans who are falling victim to crime."
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