Jose Antonio Vargas responds to Donald Trump’s immigration plan
By Alex Bregman
Just one day after Donald Trump released his plan on immigration reform, a major voice in the undocumented community, Jose Antonio Vargas, talked to Yahoo News and Finance Anchor Bianna Golodryga on “Yahoo News Live.” Vargas expressed his frustration with Trump’s plan, of which he said, “Donald Trump’s policy is self-deprecation 2.0.”
Vargas arrived in the U.S. from the Philippines in 1993 when he was 12 years old. He revealed his status as an undocumented immigrant in a New York Times magazine article in 2011. Vargas qualifies under the expansion of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, one of President Obama’s most recent immigration executive orders — something Trump would reverse.
Trump’s plan would also end birthright citizenship, have Mexico help build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and require American companies to look to American workers before hiring foreign-born workers with legal work status. Vargas told Golodryga, “Immigration is the most controversial but least understood issue in American politics, and that’s why Donald Trump is getting away with what he’s getting away with.”
When asked if he thinks those who agree with Trump are racist, he said, “No, that I do not believe.”
If Vargas had the chance to sit down with Trump, he said, “I would ask Donald Trump, ‘How do you define American, sir?’” He later went on to say, “This is not a reality television show anymore. This is running for president.”
