Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann believes that President Barack Obama’s anticipated executive action on immigration could create “illiterate” Democratic voters, she said in comments reported by The Washington Post’s Robert Costa on Wednesday.
Obama will unveil his plans for immigration reform, which could protect millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation, in a prime-time speech on Thursday.
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“Even though the president says they won’t be able to vote, we all know that many, in all likelihood, will vote,” Bachmann reportedly said. “The president has a very single-minded vision. He’s looking at new voters for 2016 … People do vote without being a citizen. It’s a wink and a nod, we all know it’s going to happen.”
Bachmann: Obama turning 'illiterate' immigrants into Democratic voters http://t.co/xC9Xils0cr
— Robert Costa (@costareports) November 19, 2014In addition to alleging that voter fraud is commonplace, Bachmann claimed that U.S. taxpayers would bear the “social cost” of “millions of unskilled, illiterate, foreign nationals coming into the United States who can’t speak the English language.”
In responding to a question from Costa about whether she was referring to Spanish speakers when using the word “illiterate,” Bachmann said, “Some are, some aren’t. I’ve been down to the border. The reason why I would say that is I spent four days at the border and spoke to American Hispanics on the border. That’s what they told me.”
The Minnesota lawmaker insisted that she wasn’t using a “pejorative term” but just repeating what Hispanic people had told her during her trip.
Republican lawmakers are in an uproar over the president’s expected action, and some have threatened to block a spending bill, which could prevent the federal government from functioning as normal. Others, including Gov. Rick Perry, have discussed the possibility of suing the president.
Joy Y. Wang