Pre-Trump clips of Dianne Feinstein talking common sense on illegal immigration takes internet by storm

(Video screenshot)

Once upon a time, in a land not that far away, Democrats such as Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein used to hold reasonable views about illegal immigration.

During a visit to the southern U.S. border in 1993, for instance, the now-open-borders-touting senator made it clear that illegal immigration needed to be stopped, not promoted.

“It is my view that, if we are going to have a North America Free Trade Agreement, that Mexico must do its share — because the day when America could be the welfare system for Mexico is gone. We simply can’t afford it,” she said during a presser at the time.

“[Y]ou’ve seen the figures, to state and local governments, of what the cost is. It’s over two billion dollars in California alone. And, I have those figures, if you want them, in specific, in my purse.”

She meant the huge taxpayer-funded quantities of money the government was spending at the time to take care of illegal aliens. These costs have only ballooned since 1993.

“It’s a competition for space,” she continued. “Whether the space is a job, the space is a home, a place in a classroom, it becomes a competition for space. This is a country that’s based on immigration. And we all know that. And yet, at times you become so overtaxed you have to concentrate on saying, ‘The people who should be here are those who come legally at this time.’ And we’ve got to, for the time being, enforce our borders.”

It was part of a broader statement she made that can be heard in full below:

 

During the same presser, Feinstein also said that illegal aliens convicted of crimes should be forced to serve their time in the prisons of their home countries.

“My proposals have been very simple: they’ve been [to] enforce our border, they have been [to] speed up the asylum process, they have been [to] crack down on illegal smuggling, they have been [to] remove the option that is given. An illegal alien convicted of a felony has an option of serving time in this country or in their own country I say return them to their own country.”

Listen:

 

Feinstein later doubled down on this rhetoric during a “Face the Nation” interview a year later.

“I think we can enforce our borders. I think we should enforce our borders. To have a situation where 40 percent of the babies born on Medicaid in California today are born of illegal immigrants creates a very real problem for the state which is in deficit,” she said.

“To have 17 percent of our prison population at a cost of $300 million a year be illegal immigrants who come here and commit felonies – that’s not what this nation is all about.”

Listen:

 

A mashup of these clips has gone viral on social media for one very legitimate reason: Because the Dianne Feinstein of 1993 and 1994 is nothing like the Dianne Feinstein of 2019.

Case in point: Last year Feinstein drafted a bill, the “Keep Families Together Act,” to stop the separation of illegal alien children from their illegal alien parents. While keeping illegal families together sounds compassionate, it’s actually cruel to both illegals and bona fide Americans.

When illegal aliens families are apprehended crossing into the states, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement must either detain them or let them go. Were they to just release the aliens into American communities, the U.S. would become an open-borders nation. Since that’s a no-no, ICE instead detains them. However, illegal alien children are separated from their parents and sent to upscale detention facilities like this to wait for their immigration hearings:

It remains unclear whether the Feinstein of 2019 believes illegal alien children would fare better in the jail-like detention facilities that their parents must endure.

What’s clear is that she could learn a lot from the saner, more logical and more reasonable Feinstein of 1993 and 1994, as noted by conservative commentator Ann Coulter and others:

The latter two Twitter users had a very valid point.

Fox News notes that in 2008 current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said,”we do need to address the issue of immigration and the challenge we have of undocumented people in our country. We certainly do not want any more coming in.”

A year later current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said “illegal immigration is wrong … and a primary goal of comprehensive immigration reform must be to dramatically curtail future illegal immigration.”

Former President Barack Obama and former Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton’s rhetoric has also changed. So what happened that caused them all to become open-borders advocates?

Hmm …

HERE’S WHAT YOU’RE MISSING …

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