Trump brings his disdain for immigrants to the Aurora rally

Former President Donald Trump invited himself to Aurora to demonize immigrants and continue what he does best: divide us.

President Trump’s lies about Aurora have been debunked time and time again. Yet he continues to tell them, hoping that his dark and fearful version of our country will win him another presidential election.

Aurora is Colorado’s most diverse city, home to many immigrants and non-immigrants. The schools are vibrant with the promise of American pluralism and democracy. The great diversity of small businesses and restaurants epitomizes the dynamism of American capitalism.

In Aurora, we see the reason why people want to come to America and the way immigrants, in turn, drive our economy and enliven our culture. Over the past decades, politics has prevented our country from restoring an immigration system that honors our best traditions. Our next president must work with Congress to restore an immigration system that is consistent with the rule of law, worthy of our history as a nation of immigrants, and fuels broad-based economic growth.

But Trump’s disdain for immigrants is so deep-seated and complete that he cannot possibly achieve that outcome — he has even lost sight of the economic benefits of immigration, let alone its cultural significance.

Ten years ago, I was part of the Gang of Eight that wrote the last comprehensive immigration bill passed by the Senate. It had a tough but fair path to citizenship, a massive overhaul of our visa system, and $46 billion for border security. It finally gave the Dreamers a real path to the American Dream, and it included more than $40 billion in state-of-the-art technology that allowed us to see every inch of the border – far more money than President Trump has ever spent. on the wall that Mexico would never pay for.

That bill passed the Senate with 68 votes, but Tea Party Republicans in the House of Representatives rejected it.

Since then, Americans have been subjected to an endless carousel of politicians using our broken immigration system to defeat the other side — most recently, President Trump himself torpedoed a bipartisan bill to address our border.

In the time since the Gang of Eight passed its bill, life in Latin America and the Caribbean has deteriorated. Democracies have crumbled; economies have collapsed. And cartels and criminal organizations have grown in power, perfecting their smuggling operations and creating a crisis at our border.