House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called out President Donald Trump’s proposed merit-based immigration plan on Wednesday, saying its real aim was to “make America white again.”
Pelosi, speaking at a Commonwealth Club of California event in San Francisco, also dinged Trump over the path to U.S. citizenship (through family-based migration) that was likely taken by the parents of his wife, Slovenia-born first lady Melania Trump.
“I don’t know if merit counted for when his wife’s family came into the country,” Pelosi said of Trump. “I don’t know. Maybe it did. God bless them if it did. But he calls that ‘chain migration,’ which he wants to get rid of.”
“Should we attach a green card to the diploma of so many scientists and engineers and all the rest and graduate students who train in the U.S. so that they can stay here?” Pelosi added. “Of course. But that’s not the point. The point is that the president does not share the view of even Ronald Reagan and two Bushes in recent history.”
Trump outlined his immigration proposals in a White House Rose Garden speech last week. They aim to curb family-based migration and increase the number of visas offered to skilled workers. Several lawmakers have noted the plan is unlikely to garner bipartisan support.
Pelosi, meanwhile, continues to resist growing calls to begin the process of impeaching Trump, who last week shared a doctored video of her on Twitter.
Check out Pelosi’s remarks in the clip above.
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