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Condelezza Rice on Immigration

By immigrationprof

From a NY Times article that is to be published in the upcoming Sunday magazine:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/magazine/16rice-t.html?pagewanted=1&hp

WHY FREE TRADE WILL COME UNDER ATTACK.
Mexico has benefited from Nafta. In the current globalfinancial crisis, of course, a lot of people are going to be questioning free trade and international integration and all of those things. . . . Yes, the financial system clearly got out of kilter, and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and the president and Congress are dealing with that. But it shouldn’t go to the core principles of markets, the importance of open trade, the fact of globalization — which is not going to go backwards.

IMMIGRATION POLICY IS FOREIGN POLICY.
We didn’t get comprehensive immigration reform. . . . I think everybody knows that this president tried. I remember the first foreign-policy meeting that I went to with the then-governor, before he was inaugurated, was with the then-governor, soon to be president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, and they talked about the need to fix this problem. I am a firm believer in defending our laws and defending our borders. . . . But it’s also true that there are a lot of hardworking people in this country who live in the shadows.

IMMIGRANTS ARE CENTRAL TO AMERICAN IDENTITY.
I was a major proponent of the temporary-worker program and finding some way to normalize the status for these people. I think that it goes to the core of who we are. I hear some people talking about, well, maybe there should be a timeout on legal immigration, check your last name and see whether or not it came over on the Mayflower.

WHY SOME IMMIGRANTS SHOULD STAY — AND SOME SHOULD STAY HOME.
Improving the economic conditions that would allow people who are clearly ambitious — if they’re going to walk across the desert to get here, they’re ambitious people — improving the capability of those people to stay home and contribute is the last piece of that puzzle. Comprehensive immigration reform is the one thing I wish we’d been able to do, and it’s going to have to be done, and I hope it’s done soon.

bh