Jose Antonio Vargas, an undocumented immigrant, has been in the public eye quite often lately, his story not uncommon for millions of people who live and work among us. On Thursday's Kelly File, Pulitzer Prize winner, Vargas shared his personal story to put a face to the millions of 'illegal immigrants' (as Trump would suggest) that are also in his shoes. Unfortunately, he had to endure the ramblings of Trump spokeswoman and shoplifting convict, Katrina Pierson, who embodies the disgust her boss has for people who were born outside the U.S. (Unless this person is a female and a model)
The three were addressing the 4-4 tie by the incomplete SCOTUS, which ruled in favor of the lower court's rebuke of the President's program on Immigration, leaving millions in a perilous position. Kelly asked him how and why he came to the U.S.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS: My mom, yeah. My mother sent me here.
KELLY: Right. And you haven’t seen her in over a decade?
VARGAS: Twenty-three years this August.
Vargas has been in these United States for more than two decades, he's worked, paid taxes, earned a college degree here, yet, doesn't have the legal capacity to return to the Philippines to see his own mother, fearing he'd never be allowed back to the only home he really knows.
He is just one of many people who have known no other home than America.
VARGAS: I'm one of 5 million people who would’ve been impacted by this and I have to tell you listening to this -- I'm neither a Republican or a Democrat. The question for me is what do you want to do with all of us? There are 12 million of us here. That's the size of Ohio. They keep playing political football, doing this, doing that, doing that. Now mind you, President Obama has deported more than 2 million of us. Donald Trump talks about building a wall in Mexico, building a bigger, better wall, when the fastest growing undocumented population in this country are Asian people, not Hispanics.
The stupid wall is simply that. Stupid, useless. Speaking of useless, Katrina has some words. They can't be the best words, but Trump likely believes they are at least 'her own.' Even though Obama has deported 2 million+, it's not enough for her or the Trumpster team.
PIERSON: And here's the thing, if an American citizen breaks a law, there is no catch-and-release program for American citizens. Mr. Trump wants to enforce the current laws, he wants to reform the current Visa system and he wants to get our country back on track. But I will also remind you one more thing --
Megyn demands that she allow Vargas to respond to her words, otherwise, we'd get no respite from this Trump representative.
KELLY: Give him a chance to respond, Katrina. No, no, it’s Jose’s turn.
PIERSON: I’ll say one more thing.
KELLY: No, it’s Jose’s turn.
VARGAS: Well, with all due respect by the way, Miss Pierson, I'm not some illegal alien from Mars. I'm actually like a human being -- I’m right here -- so calling us "illegal aliens" is actually not only inaccurate but really dehumanizing. So I have to say, it's really tough to kind of separate race from this when Donald Trump calls Mexican people racist. It's really tough to divorce race from this whole conversation when whenever he's talked about terrorists, for example, he keeps talking about radical Islam. Right? I mean, how many immigrants have been the terrorists? Have you looked at the list of the past people who have actually killed a lot of people in America? A lot of them are white guys, they’re not some terrorists from Mexico. So what does this have to do with terrorism?
Pierson replied with a predictable line that pins every problem on Democrats and President Obama. Ultimately, this unresolved problem is pretty straightforward, even Katrina must understand.
VARGAS: For me this is not about Republican or Democrat, this is about the fact that there are millions of us whose families are divided because it is an action and no resolution.
Unfortunately, this is a step up from the Gestapo deportation force a Drumpf Administration would bring us. Yikes.
