Bill Clinton: “Well, first of all, let's try to--let me try to talk some sense about this issue. The people of California do have a…”

“Well, first of all, let's try to--let me try to talk some sense about this issue. The people of California do have a problem with illegal immigration, which is more severe when the economy is in trouble. But since I became President, I have been trying to help you solve it. I mean, from the day I got in office I knew I had a mess in immigration on my hands, and I started trying to fix it 21 months ago. What have we done? We have almost doubled the border guards in San Diego, along the border down there. We have almost doubled the number of illegal aliens who have been convicted of crimes we're sending back out of the country. We're giving money to California for the first time to help deal with the cost of imprisonment. I've asked Congress to appropriate literally hundreds of millions of dollars to help you deal with the cost of education and health care. We have increased funding to California to deal with immigration by one-third, even though we are reducing Federal spending overall for the first time in 25 years. So we are moving to deal with this problem. We are also looking at ways that we can be tougher on incentives for employers not to hire illegal aliens and how we can keep up with the records. So I think the people of California should want more done. I think the Federal Government should do more. I have been in the forefront of doing that, working with Senator Feinstein, Senator Boxer, and others. I simply don't agree that 187 is the right way to go because, first of all, nearly everybody thinks it's unconstitutional. Secondly, it will be directed primarily against children. If you kick children out of the health clinics, you may run the risk of causing health problems for the general California population. If you say kids have got to be kicked out of school, you turn the teachers into police officers and you say, ``We're going to put more kids on the street.'' Well, we've got too many kids on the street in America and California today already. It's liable to raise the crime rate and cause all kinds of problems. So my view is that 187 is not the right way to do this, and it could cause California a lot of problems. You know, California is coming back economically. You've got the lowest unemployment rate in 3 years here. I have worked as hard as I know how to get investment back into California, to sell California high-tech products around the world, to sell California agricultural products around the world. We're even selling California rice in Japan for the first time. The strength of California is in its diversity. So the issue is how can we enforce the immigration laws and still build on our diversity. And I don't think 187 is the way to go. Ms. Louie. Mr. President, we have so many more questions for you. Unfortunately, your people are telling us that you are out of time, your time is limited, and you have to go. So thank you very much for joining us today on KCBS.”