During a town hall in Madison, Tennessee Wednesday, President Barack Obama referred to some illegal immigrants as “gang-bangers,” adding further that those criminal migrants should be deported “as quickly as possible.”
Obama made the comment in response to an audience member who asked if there were any plans to “expand” Obamacare for “sick migrant people,” especially those who “don’t have enough documents” that reside illegally in the U.S.
“Well, we were very clear that the Affordable Care Act did not apply to people who are not here legally. And that’s the law,” Obama told the audience member. “So that’s another example of — there’s a lot of misinformation about this. The law says that if you are undocumented, if you’re not here legally, you can’t benefit from subsidies and the program that we’ve set up.”
“The real answer to your question is why don’t we have immigration reform so that people who’ve been here a long time who are otherwise law-abiding citizens, who oftentimes have children who are U.S. citizens, who are contributing to the society and are willing to pay their dues, pay taxes, get a background check — why don’t we give them a pathway so they can be legal,” Obama said. “If we do that — if we reform the immigration system, which is all broken, then this problem that you just mentioned takes care of itself.”
“I mean, look, we should not be encouraging illegal immigration,” Obama said. “What we should be doing is setting up a smart, legal immigration system that doesn’t separate families, but does focus on making sure that people who are dangerous, people who are gang-bangers or criminals — that we’re deporting them as quickly as possible, that we’re focusing our resources there — that we’re focusing on a strong border. We’ve made improvements on all those fronts, but we could be doing even more if we had immigration reform.”