Hakeem Jeffries Calls For Bipartisan Immigration Reform Amidst ICE Actions By 'Masked Agents'

At a press briefing on Monday, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) was asked about the potential for bipartisan immigration reform.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Leader. You said that you could find common ground on removing

00:05dangerous felons from the country. What other specific provisions do you, and at

00:09least some members of your caucus, feel they can find common ground with

00:12Republicans when it comes to potential for bipartisan immigration reform?

00:17Our view on this issue is that we have to secure the border. We have a broken

00:22immigration system that should be fixed in a bipartisan and comprehensive way.

00:28And at the same time, we need to defend dreamers and farm workers and law-abiding

00:34immigrant families. Those are the core principles that could yield an effort to

00:42actually address the things that the American people want to address. As

00:47opposed to allowing the Trump administration to try to distract the

00:51American people by unleashing mass agents, if they were proud of what they are

00:57doing, why are they masked? This isn't the 1930s. Why are they masked? And so they're

01:10core principles that are pretty simple. Secure the border decisively. We supported

01:18legislation that was negotiated. It was the toughest border security bill to emerge

01:25from Congress in modern American history, and Donald Trump killed it.

01:32These people have no credibility on the issues

01:36that they claim to stand for. It's all a distraction

01:40because their agenda to try to rip health care away from the American people.

01:45They're blowing up the economy, totally mismanaging it.

01:48The American people know it. This is why his approval ratings have collapsed in

01:54general and specifically on the economy. And so every chance they get, they try to

02:00provoke the American people on this issue related to immigration.

02:06These are people where facts don't matter. Hypocrisy is not a constraint to their behavior. They say

02:14one thing and they do the other. And they actually believe that shamelessness is a superpower.

02:20We're not falling for it. Not now. Not ever. Thank you.