Democratic Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine agreed Sunday with his running mate Hillary Clinton’s comments in a private speech to Goldman Sachs that it is “un-American” to oppose immigration.
The WikiLeaks released of thousands of emails from Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta that revealed the comments from Clinton. She said about immigration “obstructionists” that “They just have a backward-looking view of America. And they play on people’s fears, not on people’s hopes, and they have to be rejected. I don’t care what they call themselves. I don’t care where they’re from. They have to be rejected because they are fundamentally unAmerican [sic].” (RELATED: Hillary In Goldman Sachs Speech: People Who Oppose Immigration Are ‘Un-American’)
Kaine was asked about these comments by ABC’s Martha Raddatz.
“Well, look, we are a nation of immigrants, and if you look at the Declaration of Independence when we broke form England, one of the bill of particulars against King George is, is we got to be independent because the king won’t let us have a working immigration system,” Kaine said.
While the Declaration of Independence did say that, the first law passed after the nation’s founding about immigration only gave citizenship to “free white” people.
Raddatz then asked Kaine if he agreed that opposition to immigration is un-American.
“To say that there should be no immigration, yes, that is definitely contrary to the best values of our country that were laid out in the Declaration of Independence and since,” the Virginia senator replied.
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A recent Pew poll found that nearly half of Americans want immigration levels to decrease.