President Bill Clinton's comments denouncing illegal immigration have resurfaced, as the issue becomes a major concern for voters and a threat to Joe Biden's re-election in 2024.
Echoing rhetoric later adopted by President Trump, Clinton blasted the effect that uncontrolled immigration has on wages and the public safety net.
"All Americans … are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country," he told Congress during his 1995 State of the Union.
"The jobs they hold may otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public services they use impose burdens on our taxpayers."
At the time, Clinton embraced calls from Democrat Barbara Jordan, of Texas, to slash legal immigration by one-third.
Jordan's recommendation was meant to help U.S. workers struggling to compete with cheap foreign labor.
Over the years, Democrats gradually lost interest in protecting American workers and embraced the radical position that "no human is illegal."
But Clinton tempered liberal openness to immigration with an emphasis on the rule of law.
"We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws," Clinton said.
"It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws that we have seen in recent years."
Trump should use this Bill Clinton 1995 immigration clip as a national campaign ad. Democrats will lose their minds.
I’m Donald Trump and I approve this video.pic.twitter.com/bQKCdO1UjB
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) February 25, 2024
Before he moved all the way to the left, Biden also acknowledged that immigration must have limits.
In a 2007 clip, Biden said that "sanctuary cities" decline sooner or later into "dumps" and businesses are forced to close.
Biden could have been describing America in 2024, with immigration once again a top concern as shocking acts of violence committed by foreign nationals grab headlines.
Democrats have been left trying to shift blame for the consequences of Biden's open border policy, which has unleashed illegal immigration on a scale never seen in American history.
Former president Clinton has urged Democrats to moderate, warning that "chaos" at the border will boost Republicans.
Democrats have vowed to blame Republicans for the collapse of an immigration bill that Biden said would allow him to "shut down" the border, but Biden is privately contemplating executive action to address the issue.
Republicans have said Biden has all the tools he needs to crack down, since he started the crisis to begin with.
