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Republican Presidential Candidate Francis Suarez: US needs a ‘coherent solution’ to the ‘multi-decade, multi-administration immigration problem’
Following the recent passage of a Florida law that has led to an exodus of migrant workers from the state, Republican candidate for president and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez discussed problems associated with workforce shortages and worker misclassification with Liz Claman during the Claman Countdown on Fox News. Suarez proposed a four-pronged immigration reform solution that would secure the border, decrease US trade with China while increasing it in the Western Hemisphere, tie legal immigration levels to unemployment rates, and create a pathway for unauthorized immigrants in the US to earn legal status. Watch the video or read their statements on these topics below.
Liz Claman: “A wave of fear is actually striking Miami's booming construction industry and over the past 72 hours, it's really gotten bad. A new law took effect July 1st that seeks to criminalize undocumented immigration in the state. The law signed by and supported by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis makes it a third-degree felony for people to knowingly use false identification to obtain employment. Florida's tourism, construction and agriculture businesses are already reeling from this new law as migrant workers have begun fleeing the state. What does Cuban-American Miami mayor and 2024 GOP presidential candidate Francis Suarez have to say about this."
Francis Suarez: “Immigrants can be great contributors to American society. It is very much part of a reason this country is so great…There's no doubt that the law is having an adverse impact on small businesses in our state… I just came back from Iowa… Carpenters there are telling me all they want is to have a rational, legal immigration system so that they’re not competing against people who are operating under a different set of rules. They have absolutely no problem with legal immigration. They have no problem with having more employees because they actually say that their job sites need employees. What they don't want is to be W2 employees that are paying into the system and then have employees that they're competing against that are not paying into the system that are either 1099 or getting paid in cash. So that's the big issue… we just need someone who can create a coherent solution to this multi-decade multi administration, immigration problem,” said Suarez.
“The first step is you've got to secure the border. What's happened under Joe Biden's border policy, it's destructive for America. You've got about 80 to 90,000 Americans dying of fentanyl on an annual basis. You've got a human trafficking crisis that's affecting cities all across America. This is the one thing that Democrat or Republican mayors are actually unified on. So you've got to secure the border. Do whatever it takes, treat it as the crisis that it is number one,” said Suarez.
“Number two, you've got to take some of the resources that you're giving China. We're giving China a trillion dollars in wealth on an annual basis in the form of our trade deficit and in the form of the IP that they steal from us every year, we've got to take that and create more prosperity in our hemisphere that will reduce the pressure of immigration in countries all across our hemisphere,” said Suarez.
“Third, you've got to nexus legal immigration to objective criteria like unemployment and the declining birth rates. Something that we have in common with China, except nobody wants to go to China. Everybody wants to come here. It should be at some level of merit based and skill-based based on the kind of jobs that we need in this country,” said Suarez.
“Number four…what do you do with all the undocumented that are here? I think the country is not ready for an amnesty or legalization of those undocumented, maybe for them getting some sort of legal status because they know that there's no logistical means to get them out of the country and it's just not possible,” said Suarez.
Liz Claman: “Yeah, if they want to work and they're ready to work then they should be paying into the system and we should certainly facilitate getting them into that position,” said Claman.
