Death Match 2016: Linda Chavez versus Donald Trump
Conservative commentator Linda Chavez is taking on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
A press release yesterday includes the following:
“Linda Chavez, president of the Becoming American Institute, will be speaking at the Western Conservative Summit at the Denver Convention Center on Friday July 1, 2016 at 1:30 PM. Chavez, a long-time conservative activist, former Reagan administration official, and nationally syndicated columnist will be discussing why immigration is good for America. Her speech comes after presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump addresses the group in the morning.
“I feel very strongly that conservatives need to hear an alternative to Mr. Trump’s campaign of disinformation and ugly rhetoric on immigration,” Chavez said. “Immigration is part of what makes America great and Mr. Trump’s plan to halt legal immigration for up to two years would be a disaster for the American economy. Americans have a right to be concerned about illegal immigration, but the best way to fix the problem is to adopt a market-based immigration system to allow the workers our economy needs to come here legally,” she said.
Chavez has written extensively on immigration issues and has been a frequent critic of Mr. Trump’s plan to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border. Writing in Commentary magazine in May, Chavez noted that the cost of building the wall would exceed $17 billion, roughly the size of the annual budget for the National Security Agency.
“Trump has never explained in detail how he will accomplish his task of rounding up illegal immigrants,” Chavez said, “but he has spoken favorably of ‘Operation Wetback,” the 1950s program which resulted in 88 deaths in one incident alone where Mexican nationals died of heatstroke in a holding pen in the desert awaiting deportation.
Citing a study by American Action Forum, a right-of-center research organization in Washington DC, Chavez said that the cost of deporting 11 million illegal immigrants over two years would cost the American economy $1 trillion and reduce the workforce by 6.4 percent. “There is a better way,” Chavez argued.
Chavez will make her presentation in Room 503 at the Denver Convention Center.”
KJ