Dem Senator Reveals ‘People We Care About Most’ Are ‘Undocumented Americans’ in US

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Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut “said the quiet part out loud” on Wednesday during an MSNBC interview with host Chris Hayes.

The ill-advised political season comment was made as recent polls show that illegal immigration and the southern border crisis were top political concerns for most Americans.

The Wednesday interview centered on the border crisis and the recent “border security” bill that appears will be rejected by Republicans because it is paired with funding the war in Ukraine, it restricts states from enforcing their borders and it continues to incentivize illegal immigration.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said of the legislation: “I’ve reviewed the bill, I don’t think it will solve our border crisis, and might make it worse. I will oppose it.”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) said the bill would be “dead on arrival” if forwarded to the lower chamber for approval.

Cotton added: “The bill gives Secretary Mayorkas the right — for the first time — to grant asylum claims (and thus American citizenship) to illegal aliens at the border without review by the immigration courts, which will be a massive pathway to rubber-stamping amnesty.”

During the discussion with Chris Hayes, Murphy lamented that rejecting the bill is a blow to the Democratic Party’s plan to create a path to citizenship for the “people they [Democrats] care about most … undocumented Americans.”

Murphy acknowledged that moving illegal immigrants into the country to skew the electorate “has been a failed play for 20 years.” Murphy added, “[Chris] you are right that that has been the Democratic strategy for 30 years, maybe, and it has failed to deliver for the people we care about most, the undocumented Americans that are in this country.”

Murphy did not clarify how illegal immigrants were Americans.

Doubling down, Murphy lamented that many in America “want us to change the reality at the border.”

Claiming that Republicans were “allergic” to passing good border legislation, Murphy said of the Senate bill: “[The] bill [was not perfect but] still had in it some very important things for migrant rights, including a right to representation and earlier work permits, and the biggest expansion of visas in 30 years. It’s not a pathway to citizenship, but it is something substantial for people that actually care about migrants.”

When Hayes asked if Murphy thought the bill, if passed, would help the situation at the border, the Senator replied:

“I think you are watching the issue of migration take down left and center-left governments all around the world right now. I think we’re at the point where if we didn’t bring some sense of order to the border, if we didn’t make a big down payment on reform to the asylum system, we were gonna have a really hard time holding on to a consensus in this country that we should keep legal immigration pathways alive.”

Elaborating on the bill, Murphy said:

“And so, I am of the belief that this is a moment where you had to show some big bipartisan momentum and progress on the border, or you would never, ever have the ability to try to rescue the undocumented Americans that desperately need to help.”

On Wednesday, President Biden blamed the border crises on former President Donald Trump.