The Great Smoky Mountain Journal
Staff Reports
Posted: Sunday, January 21, 2018 03:52 PM
Former President Jimmy Carter: Give Trump Credit For Bringing Immigration Debate To Nation
Carter told Emory University students that the "pressures and the publicity that Trump has brought to the immigration issue" could even yield comprehensive immigration law changes that Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama could not muster.
"I don't see that as a hopeless cause," Carter said. He added that Trump's critics, including himself, "have to give him credit when he does some things that are not as bad" as they are depicted.
"As a matter of fact, to give Trump some
due, he hasn't ended DACA yet," Carter said. "What he said is he's given
the Congress six months to address the issue, which is long overdue."
He also noted that Trump has waffled on whether he'd actually move to
deport so-called "dreamers" if Congress doesn't act.
As the 92-year-old Democrat spoke at Emory in Atlanta, Democratic
congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi of California and Chuck Schumer of
New York were huddled with the Republican Trump at the White House;
afterward, Pelosi and Schumer announced a deal they said would protect
young immigrants from deportation and grant some Republican demands on
border security.
Carter reminded students that Obama, whom Carter supported, failed to
win passage for the Dream Act -- named for the sometimes sympathetic
stories of the young immigrants -- even when he had Democratic
majorities on Capitol Hill.
The 39th president, who served one term from 1977 to 1981, blamed both
major parties for an inability to pass any major immigration law
overhaul since a 1986 law signed by President Ronald Reagan. Carter lost
to Reagan in November 1980.
Carter said members of his party have been too reluctant to make deals
on border enforcement, though he clarified that technological
investments would be better than Trump's proposal for a physical wall.
Carter said Republicans are too quick to dismiss discussions of
"amnesty" for "longtime residents."
The deal between Democrats and Trump does not include a U.S-Mexico
border wall that was a centerpiece of Trump's presidential campaign.
Beyond immigration, Carter told students he supports a single-payer
health care system, and he recalled proposing a measure as president
that would have phased in a "Medicare-for-all" structure by extending
benefits first to children, then to older Americans as the federal
budget allowed. That did not pass.
Democratic support is growing for Sen. Bernie Sanders' proposal to
extend Medicare coverage to all Americans, a trend that Carter noted.
Carter said earlier this year that he voted for Sanders over Hillary
Clinton in Georgia's 2016 Democratic presidential primary.
He also told of collapsing earlier this year while working on a Habitat
for Humanity project in Canada and being hospitalized. When he was
released, he said, he asked what he owed. "Zero," he recalled. "The
Canadian taxpayers paid for my treatment."
Carter acknowledged to students the considerable expense of single-payer
models and the political risks for his party if they anger the private
insurance industry and push the tax hikes necessary to pay for universal
coverage.
Still, he concluded, "Theoretically, it's the best system."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
