Hillary Clinton said in 2013 that she dreamed of open borders but denied during Wednesday’s presidential debate that she was expressing support for a free-flowing immigration policy.
“In a speech you gave to a Brazilian bank for which you were paid $225,000, we’ve learned from Wikileaks, that you said this, and I want to quote: ‘My dream is a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders,'” debate moderator Chris Wallace, of Fox News, said to Clinton.
“Is that your dream, open borders?” Wallace asked.
“Well if you went on to read the rest of the sentence I was talking about energy,” Clinton said.
“We trade more energy with our neighbors than we trade with the rest of the world combined. And I do want us to have an electric grid, an energy system that crosses borders.” (RELATED: Hillary Clinton: ‘My Dream Is Open Borders’)
Clinton then pivoted to a critique of Wikileaks, the group which published the emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
Podesta’s emails included transcripts of Clinton’s paid speeches, which the campaign has refused to release. Clinton’s campaign flagged her open borders remark along with other comments she made in speeches as a potential problem for the candidate.
Trump responded to Clinton’s denial and pivot by asserting that she does support open borders for immigration.
“Just to finish on the borders, she wants open borders,” Trump said. “People are going to pour into our country. People will come in from Syria. She wants 550 percent more people than Barack Obama. And he has thousands and thousands of people. They have no idea where they come from. and you see, we are going to stop radical Islamic terrorism in this country.
“I just want to tell you, she wants open borders,” he concluded.
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