Fetterman’s Debate Challenges: Selling Policies and Proving He’s Fit to Serve
WASHINGTON—With voters in the presidential election still in many states reeling from the Republican sweep of the House and Senate last week, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are locked in a fiercely partisan battle over the economy, immigration, and national security.
In the debate over immigration, the two candidates are locked in a race to see who can be the strongest champion for “Dreamer” illegal immigrant children who were brought to the U.S. as children. It’s a debate that will test Democratic voters’ readiness to embrace the party that has been historically hostile to immigration.
The debate comes at a moment when one of those illegal immigrant children will begin kindergarten this week.
In contrast to Trump, Clinton sees the Dreamers as Americans in their own right.
“I have known her for more than 20 years and I know that she is devoted to people who come here, work hard, do not become a burden on society and, hopefully, contribute to our country,” she said during an earlier debate.
In the GOP primary, Trump has been on the vanguard of a campaign to deport illegal immigrant children, and he has said he wants to start the process by removing about 1.8 million illegal immigrants, many of them from Mexico, immediately. His argument goes like this: Illegal immigrants have broken our laws, and the Obama administration didn’t do enough to stop them.
On Wednesday night in Las Vegas, Trump said he was prepared to deport all illegal immigrants in the country. “I don’t want people here. I don’t like them. They’re sending us the wrong kind of people,” he said.
Facing intense pressure to either drop his anti-immigrant rhetoric or backpedal on his commitment to deport “Dreamers,” Trump backtracked. “I’m not going to tell you what I’m going to do. I’m not going to tell you what I’m going to do. I’ll just start. I’m going to start,” he
