On Thursday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” Minneapolis City Council President Elliott Payne defended the city’s separation ordinance preventing participation in immigration enforcement by saying that “If you believe that we should be enforcing our immigration laws, then you shouldn’t be sending the military to the city of Minneapolis, you should be perp walking corporate leaders who are hiring undocumented immigrants as part of their workforce, if that’s what you truly care about. I tend to care that we have a welcoming and inclusive society that is built on multiculturalism, and I’d like to see our federal laws reflect that.”
Co-host Jim Sciutto asked, “Last month, as you know, the City Council strengthened what’s known as a separation ordinance, disallowing city officials — and this includes the police — from participating in federal immigration enforcement. Is that policy working, do you believe? Or is it having, as well, unintended consequences?”
Payne responded, “So, we can have a political debate about the spectrum of immigration acceptance within our country. I happen to live in a political space where I think we should have an inclusive and welcoming immigration policy in the United States of America. Other people may disagree with those politics. We debate those through democracy and through passing laws. What we’re seeing happening right now is not a process of democracy. This is a process of authoritarianism. If you believe that we should be enforcing our immigration laws, then you shouldn’t be sending the military to the city of Minneapolis, you should be perp walking corporate leaders who are hiring undocumented immigrants as part of their workforce, if that’s what you truly care about. I tend to care that we have a welcoming and inclusive society that is built on multiculturalism, and I’d like to see our federal laws reflect that. And that’s why I got into politics myself, but that’s a process that we use democracy to resolve. This is not democracy. This is authoritarianism, point-blank.”
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