President Barack Obama is ignoring the plight of millions of Americans in need with his focus on extending protections to illegal immigrants through executive order, neurosurgeon and potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson told
Newsmax TV's "America's Forum."
Carson questioned why Obama placed the immigration issue above the "millions and millions of people in this country, in our inner cities, Appalachia, rural areas, who are suffering enormously economically."
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"I don't think it takes into consideration the welfare of American citizens," Carson said Friday. "Why don't we spend some time figuring out what we can do for [Americans suffering economically]?
"If we place nearly as much emphasis on them, we might be able to then reach a point where we can administer aid to other people."
Carson called Obama's announcement Thursday, which included temporary protection from deportations for illegal immigrants, "craziness." He said it essentially amounted to amnesty and would likely include benefits from the government.
"So basically, you're extending amnesty to everybody. And then he says, 'Well, they're not going to be eligible for healthcare benefits and some of the other benefits.'
"Give me a break. They're going to be eligible for all the benefits if they're here," Carson said.
Those benefits present their own problem when the U.S. is already suffering under a national debt "approaching $18 trillion" and that would only "keep ballooning" to pay for costs associated with millions of immigrants, Carson said.
Carson suggested Obama's actions were creating a constitutional crisis in the country, as the president attempted to exert powers beyond the scope of his office.
Carson recently told the
Christian Broadcasting Network that Obama was "very much like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin" and would "keep going until you stop him."
The question now was how Republicans would respond to Obama, Carson said, suggesting that it would be prudent to defund projects that would "hurt him and those around him," in the same way the president looked for projects that would "inflict the most pain on the American people" during last year's budget sequestration.
"I am very hopeful that they will stand up to him. And I hope they put in front of them a whole list of things that can be defunded," he said.
"I don't want things that are going to hurt the American people, but ... we can do the same thing to [Obama as he did during sequestration]."
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Carson suspected Republicans were already planning a strategy to counter the immigration order when they take control of the Senate in January, and said he was "encouraged" by "what I hear [incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell saying and some of the other people."
He said Americans would stand behind lawmakers "if they really have a spine, and if they really stand up for American principles."
Republican conservatives and moderates now need to "stop fighting each other," Carson said, because doing so "makes the secular progressives dance in the streets."
"We've got to be able to look at the big picture, understand what our objectives are, and recognize that people will always have differences," he said. "We just need to learn how to talk and work out things, but understand that unless we stick together, they will win."
Obama was "very smart" and also "clever and scheming," Carson added, saying that it would benefit the country as a whole if the president "could use that intellect on behalf of the American people, rather than on behalf of his nefarious agenda."
The purpose of Obama's executive order on immigration was undoubtedly to boost Democratic votes, Carson said, otherwise "if it was really about compassion, why wouldn't we be using all this energy to help all those young people in our inner cities and Appalachia and our rural areas? They've been there all along.
"Why aren't we spending all this time and effort on them?"
Regarding tensions in Ferguson, Missouri, over the death of African-American teen Michael Brown last August by Officer Darren Wilson, Carson said protestors were "being manipulated," adding violence had the effect of justifying the "militarization of the police across the nation."
"Recognize that it's not doing you any good to get out there and destroy property and to hurt other people," he said. "We love our police. We don't want to get into this big confrontational thing, which sets us up for bad things in the future."
Civil rights activist Al Sharpton, who has been involved in the Ferguson protest, would do better to "direct his attention to all those young people in inner cities who are going to be killed today and tomorrow, and get at the root causes of those things," rather than stir up controversy, Carson said.
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