From the LuAnn Bennett for Congress campaign:
New Trump “Tracking System” for Immigrants Directly Mirrors Earlier Comstock Proposal
McLean – Rep. Barbara Comstock’s 2014 proposal to track immigrants like FedEx packages is now a major plank in GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s immigration platform. Yesterday, in a major immigration speech, Donald Trump told a Phoenix crowd that he was developing an “exit-entry visa tracking system” to track immigrants, a program similar to the one Rep. Comstock pitched in 2014.
Trump: “Number eight, we will finally complete the biometric entry-exit visa tracking system which we need desperately … We will have a proper tracking system.” [9/1/16]
Comstock: “FedEx can track packages coming in here all the time. We can track people who are coming into the country.” [9/24/14]
Outlets were quick to draw the connection between Trump’s latest proposal and a similar one his advisor Chris Christie pitched during the GOP presidential primary, a proposal that directly mirrored the platform Rep. Barbara Comstock ran on a full year before Christie’s presidential run. From NJ Advance Media:
“WATCH: Trump embraces Christie plan to track immigrant visas like Fedex packages,” NJ Advance Media, August 28, 2016
“Donald Trump on Saturday said he was developing an ‘exit-entry tracking system’ to track immigrant visas similar to one Gov. Chris Christie pitched during his own White House run.
Speaking at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, Trump said the system would “ensure those who overstay their visas, that they’re quickly removed.”
Trump’s comments came shortly after New York mayor Rudy Giuliani told NJ Advance Media thatTrump would soon embrace Christie’s plan to track immigrant visas like Fedex packages.”
As CNN noted, Chris Christie borrowed his idea from Rep. Comstock:
“Christie is not the first politician to cite FedEx as a model for addressing illegal immigration. Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock and Newt Gingrich have made similar suggestions in the past.”
“Rep. Comstock and Donald Trump share the exact same crass and insensitive views about our immigrant neighbors,” Bennett spokesman Robert Howard said. “Those views – that the federal government should inhumanely track people like FedEx packages – directly threaten the diversity that makes the 10th district great. Rep. Comstock’s top political operative recently confirmed they share the same principles. This is just further proof that they also share the exact same policy proposals.”
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