House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) described Democrats as “strong” on border security, offering her remarks during a Thursday press conference in Washington, DC.

Pelosi declared, “We have a responsibility to protect our borders. Let’s make no mistake about that, and Democrats have been strong on that point.”

Pelosi described Republican tax proposals as a “tax scam for the rich,” accusing the GOP of “relentlessly and cruelly” increasing the cost of health care by “destroying life-saving protections” related to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).



Pelosi accused Republicans of “taking food” from babies:

It is sad to see when they want to cut CHIP; the children’s health insurance program. They want to cut SNAP, taking that food out of out the mouths of babies; the things that they do to the air our children breathe and water they drink.

Pelosi said foreigners detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for illegally entering the U.S. had “lost [their] identification,” further describing illegal immigration as an unserious crime:

The fact that they lost the identification, the this or that, they weren’t careful with this, making it harder for them to reunite people. In fact, in some cases they’re saying people have committed crimes when it fact it might be a visa [or] a status violation, it isn’t about our values as a country. Certainly if somebody has committed a crime — a serious crime — that’s something to be considered, but let’s carefully look at all of these things and judge them one-by-one.

Migrant mothers seeking entry to the U.S. via Mexico “had no other option,” said Pelosi, adding that illegal immigration is “the only recourse they [have].”

Pelosi previously described proposals for a southern border wall as “a sign of weakness” that “undermine who we are as a country.”

Two House Democrats have called for the abolition of ICE and introduced legislation toward that end.

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