As all GOP Presidential candidates are set to be in California in a matter of days for the second Republican debate, two new ads are hitting the party for its hardliner stance on deportation — and the toxic rhetoric of Donald Trump and others.
One ad, from the National Immigration Forum Action Fund, “juxtaposes the words of three Republican presidential candidates against those of a revered GOP figure: former president Ronald Reagan.”
The message is especially significant considering this debate will be held at the Ronald Reagan Library, and Reagan supported and signed historic legislation in 1986 granting nearly three million undocumented immigrants citizenship.
“I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life. God-blessed and teeming with people of all kinds, living in harmony and peace,” Reagan says in the ad.
“And, if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it — and see it still.”
Yet, while Republican candidates for President continually boast their deep love for Reagan, the vast majority are at odds with his stance on immigration, opposing citizenship for undocumented immigrants and instead favoring ugly, anti-immigrant rhetoric.
At least one candidate, Trump, favors building a massive wall along the entire US/Mexico border while rounding up and deporting the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants:
In a second ad, California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom mocks Trump’s immigration plan as dangerous and unrealistic, resulting in devastated communities and billions lost from our economy:
“It’s a perfect time to show you the truth behind his immigration ideas and how they’ll hurt all of us,” Mr. Newsom says, as an animation of Mr. Trump, his comb-over flopping in the wind, descends from his private jet and onto the debate stage.
The advertisement goes on to argue that Mr. Trump’s promised wall along the border with Mexico would be unfeasible and that the cost of deporting illegal immigrants en masse would sink the economy.
