One of the Democratic presidential primary leaders, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., ripped President Donald Trump's merit-based immigration reform proposal as an attempt to create "hierarchies among immigrants."
"We cannot allow people to start parsing and pointing fingers and creating hierarchies among immigrants," Sen. Harris said during a Las Vegas, Nevada speech Thursday, per CNN. "The beauty of the tradition of our country has been to say, when you walk through the door, you are equal.
"We spoke those words in 1776, 'we are all equal' and should be treated that way. Not, 'oh well, if you come from this place, you might only have a certain number of points, and if you come from that place you might have a different number of points.'"
President Trump's preference of merit over chain migration of families is particularly concerning to Harris.
"It is usually the sibling connection – there was no mention of that in the policy whatsoever," Harris told CNN. "It is, and has always been, about family. And that was completely overlooked, and I would suggest, denied, in the way the policy was outlined today."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had ripped merit-based immigration policies in his weekly press briefing earlier Thursday.
"Certainly we want to attract the best to our country, and that includes many people from many parts of society," Pelosi said. "So, we'll see what values are reflected there. We've only heard titles like merit, which is non-merit. It means merit in the eyes of Donald Trump."
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