Immigration: What US presidential candidates have said

Hillary Clinton said she would extend President Obama's work to protect illegal immigrants

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has firmly planted her campaign flag in favour of a legal path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, as she held her third campaign event on Tuesday in Nevada.

Mrs Clinton spoke at Rancho High School in Las Vegas and unveiled her plans for immigration reform, saying that she plans to “go even further” than President Barack Obama has to protect millions of undocumented immigrants.

“There are more people like many parents of DREAMers and others with deep ties and contributions to our communities who deserve to stay, and I will fight for them,” Mrs Clinton said.

By DREAMers, the Democratic front-runner was referring to illegal immigrants who entered the US before they were 16 and were given protections under the DREAM Act. She said she would extend those protections.

Immigration reform has been among the top issues facing President Barack Obama and it surely will be one of the issues at the forefront of the presidential debates heading toward the 2016 election. See below for quotes from the candidates – who have declared they will run for president – on their immigration stances.

Mike Huckabee

“We’ve got to repeal Obama’s unconstitutional executive orders, oppose amnesty and secure the border. You don’t punish people for living by the rules. If you’re rewarding people who play outside the rules, and punish people who live within the rules, pretty soon nobody is going to play by the rules.”

Marco Rubio

“You don’t have a right to illegally immigrate here. It’s not a right. What you are appealing to is the best interest of the country. You are appealing to our morality as people. But you can’t appeal to a right. There is no right to illegally immigrate anywhere in the world.”

Ted Cruz

“I consider myself a proponent of immigration reform. There is no stronger advocate of legal immigration in the U.S. Senate than I am. “They are treating immigration as a political cudgel where they want to use it to scare the Hispanic community. And their objective is to have the Hispanic community vote monolithically Democrat.”

Rand Paul

“I’ve always been of the opinion that we should do things the proper way. I am in favour of doing immigration reform, but it should be done in the proper fashion. The 11 million (illegal immigrants), I think, are never going home, don’t need to be sent home, and I would incorporate them into our society by giving them work visas and making them taxpayers.”

Carly Fiorina

“Immigration is a situation where people have lost faith in the political class because we have had so many long standing problems. The border has not been secure for a very long time. I think the privilege of citizenship should be left to those who worked hard and did it the right way,”

Ben Carson

“Right now, we have very porous borders and unenthusiastic and inconsistent enforcement of immigration laws. Further incentives for illegal immigration are easy enrollment in public schools, easy employment for those willing to take jobs others don’t want, easy access to health care, and easy acquisition of public support through welfare programs. Yet this population cannot participate in the formal workforce, which means they cannot contribute fully to their local economies.

“A national guest-worker program makes sense and seems to work well in Canada. Non-citizens would have to apply for a guest-worker permit and have a guaranteed job awaiting them. Taxes would be paid at a rate commensurate with other U.S. workers, and special visas would allow for easy entry and egress across borders. Guest-worker status would be granted to individuals and not to groups.”

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