Democrat Beto O’Rourke publicly scolded a woman for asking why he favors illegal immigrants over legal immigrants.

“I want those asylum seekers here in this country… Stop trafficking in those lies,” he told her.

A woman told me undocumented immigrants are a "slap in the face" to "legal immigrants." I told her it's a slap in the face to lock kids in cages. Immigrants pose no threat to her. And we need to call people out for saying they do. pic.twitter.com/cpnE9PGBvF — Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) October 6, 2019

“Why is it that you pander to the illegal aliens and encourage illegal immigration?” the unidentified woman asked, amid jeers from O’Rourke’s progressive supporters. “We are a nation of laws, and I just think it is a slap in the face to every legal immigrant who has waited, and paid and played by the rules.”

O’Rouke ignored the legal and moral distinction between legal and illegal immigrants: “What is a slap in the face to my conscience and to the best traditions of this country is taking kids from their parents and putting them in cages,” O’Rourke replied amid cheers from his supporters.

He continued:

In this country, we in this country, have lost the lives of seven children… in our custody and in our care. There are tens of thousands waiting on the other side of the border in an Orwellian-named Migrant Protection Protocol, in Tijuana, in Ciudad Juárez, vulnerable, penniless, frightened. They’re being preyed upon those who exploit those who have no defense left. If immigration is a problem, it is the best possible problem this country could have. I want those asylum seekers here in this country. I want us to live according to our conscience, to our laws, to our commitments and to the best boldest brightest future, we could possibly have. Those immigrants pose no threat to you, nor to me. Stop trafficking in these lies.

The “children in cages” theme cited by O’Rourke refers to the brief detention of migrants’ children in bare-bones border facilities. The youths and children are swiftly transferred to shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Other Democratic legislators, sometimes on camera, have blamed Americans for migants’ deaths and have insisted that the United States is a “nation of immigrants.”

Democrats also downplay their role in creating the legal “catch and release” incentives for migrants to bring their vulnerable children up through Mexico to the border.

In a press event at a border detention center, Democratic legislators offer love and aid for foreign migrants, but nothing for Americans — except a not-subtle threat of government power. I'm not sure that is the best way to win Americans' votes in 2020. https://t.co/a78BYu6GHS — Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) July 2, 2019

Democrat legislators and supporters also downplay the economic threat created by low-skill labor to Americans’ wages, rents, and schools. In November 2018, Breitbart reported:

Five million Central American residents want to migrate into the United States, according to a Gallup survey published right after the midterm elections. The caravans of economic migrants moving northwards to the U.S. border “actually represent a relatively small fragment of a much larger group of people in their own region — and around the world — who say they would like to move to the U.S. if they could,” said Gallup. The five million number is one-in-three adults in Central America, the survey firm said. But average birth rate and family size in Central America are roughly twice as large as in the United States, so the migration of 5 million could lead to the birth of at least 5 million additional people after the migrants get jobs in the United States. The estimate was posted by Gallup as President Donald Trump’s lawyers try to fend off lawsuits against his November plan to curb the growing use of asylum claims by economic migrants from Central America, including the migrants who are part of the caravans heading to the U.S. border.

Immigration Numbers:

Each year, roughly four million young Americans join the workforce after graduating from high school or a university. This total includes about 800,000 Americans who graduate with skilled degrees in business or health care, engineering or science, software, or statistics. But the federal government then imports about 1.1 million legal immigrants and refreshes a resident population of about 1.5 million white-collar visa workers — including approximately one million H-1B workers and spouses — and about 500,000 blue-collar visa workers. The government also prints more than one million work permits for new foreigners, and rarely punishes companies for employing illegal migrants. This policy of inflating the labor supply boosts economic growth and stock values for investors. The stimulus happens because the extra labor ensures that employers do not have to compete for American workers by offering higher wages and better working conditions. The federal policy of flooding the market with cheap, foreign, white-collar graduates and blue-collar labor shifts wealth from young employees toward older investors. It also widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, reduces marriage rates, and hurts children’s schools and college educations.

The cheap-labor economic strategy also pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and it sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with drug addiction.

The labor policy also moves business investment and wealth from the Heartland to the coastal cities, explodes rents and housing costs, undermines suburbia, shrivels real estate values in the Midwest, and rewards investors for creating low-tech, labor-intensive workplaces.

But President Donald Trump’s “Hire American” policy is boosting wages by capping immigration within a growing economy. The Census Bureau said September 10 that men who work full-time and year-round got an average earnings increase of 3.4 percent in 2018, pushing their median salaries up to $55,291. Women gained 3.3 percent in wages, to bring their median wages to $45,097 for full time, year-round work.