California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters is once again coming out against a Trump administration policy, calling President Donald Trump’s new immigration proposal “very racist” in a recent interview.
“I think some of [Trump’s plan] is very racist. It is not keeping with what this country is supposed to be all about,” the longtime Democratic lawmaker said Friday on CNN’s “New Day.”
When she was asked for exactly what about the plan was racist, Waters answer was that the aspects of the plan that put a premium on skilled immigrants and those proficient in English.
The idea that better-educated immigrants get higher priority for visas didn’t sit well with the California Democrat.
“This business about you must speak English or we’re going to give you points for speaking English. We don’t want poor people, we only want those people who are earning substantial wages already. All of those things are not keeping in step with the way that we treat human beings,” Waters said.
“And even the fact that, you know, he used to talk about chain migration. When you were able to help others in the family come. He’s going to limit that. I think that some of those policies are racist,” she concluded.
Waters comments were similar to that of fellow California representative House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who called out the White House plan.
“The White House has repackaged the worst of its past failed immigration plans: green-lighting the Administration’s barbaric family detention policies, reviving the President’s ineffective and wasteful wall, completely abandoning our patriotic and determined Dreamers and gutting our asylum and refugee protections,” Pelosi said in a statement according to The Daily Caller.
Additionally, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer also said in a statement that the president is pushing “xenophobic and false stereotypes about immigrants from certain parts of the world.”
