The Presidential Debates:
Immigration 101?

FREE NEWSLETTER

Learn how to benefit from United States immigration laws and procedures from a former INS Attorney (1976-82) with over 30 years of experience. SHUSTERMAN'S IMMIGRATION UPDATE is must reading for potential immigrants, employers, human resources managers, immigration attorneys, reporters and policy makers. Join over 57,000 persons in more than 150 countries in subscribing to our FREE monthly e-mail newsletter. E-Mail Address: Your Name:

The Presidential debates featured a host of questions regarding illegal immigration. The candidates, including some who whose photos do not appear on this page, expressed their opinions on the this issue on a number of occasions. See if you can match the candidates with their quotes.

Win a free legal consultation. Don't be surprised if a candidate has multiple, conflicting quotes.

1. "The reality is that we track packages from UPS and FedEx every time we order from Amazon.com. And, yet, we've got a government that says we don't know what to do and how to keep up with people. If necessary, we ought to outsource this whole issue to FedEx and UPS. They seem to have a better way of keeping up with packages than our government does with people."

2. "I take issue with your [interviewer] description of people being illegal immigrants. There aren't any illegal human beings. They are undocumented. The best way to deal with this is cancel NAFTA and renegotiate the trade agreement with Mexico. You give people a path to legalization and make sure that you don't criminalize their status any further. I take exception to the way you framed that question"

3. "But if you’re prepared to send an 80 year-old grandmother who’s been here 70 years back to some country, then frankly you’re not quite as compassionate as maybe I am."

4. “You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent…I’m not joking.”

5. “Some of the hardest-working and most productive people in this city are undocumented aliens. If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you’re one of the people who we want in this city. You’re somebody that we want to protect, and we want you to get out from under what is often a life of being like a fugitive, which is really unfair.”

6. “A nation without secure borders is no nation at all. It makes no sense to fight terrorists abroad when our own front door is left unlocked.”

7. “You stop illegal immigration by building a fence, a physical fence and then a technological fence.”

8. “You know what, we should stop demonizing immigrants, we should stop doing that.”

9. “If they could, I would have turned all the people over, it would have helped me. I would have had a smaller population. I would have had fewer problems.”

Send your answers, along with some biographical information about yourself (Are you an immigrant? If so, where are you from? Where do you live? What is your occupation? Special interests?), tell us how long you've been a subscriber to our newsletter and what you use our newsletter/website for, to:

akhan@shusterman.com

The winner will receive a free consultation before the end of February 2008.