 [NR] White House Chief of Staff John Kelly spoke with John Burnett of NPR yesterday on a wide variety of topics. A large part of the interview addressed immigration, in the course of which Kelly said:
The vast majority of the people that move illegally into the United States are not bad people. They’re not criminals. They’re not MS-13. Some of them are not. But they’re also not people that would easily assimilate into the United States into our modern society. They’re overwhelmingly rural people in the countries they come from ‐ fourth, fifth, sixth grade educations are kind of the norm. They don’t speak English, obviously that’s a big thing. They don’t speak English. They don’t integrate well, they don’t have skills. They’re not bad people. They’re coming here for a reason. And I sympathize with the reason. But the laws are the laws. But a big name of the game is deterrence. Obvious facts, you might think. But then, if you’re reading this, you’re probably not a leftist ‐ because to leftists, it was like swearing in church. ThinkProgress called it a "racist rant," Splinter called it a "racist rant," a New York Daily News columnist called it a "racist rant" and, for variety, Rolling Stone called the remarks "racist comments," Karen Tumulty called it "know-nothingism," and the Plum Line decried Kelly’s "terrible immigration lies." There are plenty more, but you get the idea. |