The migrant children who were detained at the border by President Donald Trump’s deputies should get financial compensation from Americans, as well as quick citizenship, Mayor Pete Buttigieg told his national audience at Thursday’s Democrat debate.

“Yes, and they should have a fast-track to citizenship because what the United States did under this president to them was wrong,” Buttigieg responded when he was asked if the detained migrants should be compensated. “We have a moral obligation to make right what was broken.”

In a follow-up question and answer, Buttigieg declined to endorse reparations for the descendants of slaves.

At least five million people from Central America wish to migrate into the United States, according to a 2018 survey.

Buttigieg’s call for Americans to pay the economic migrants reflects the pro-migrant mood of “woke” white liberals whom Buttigieg is trying to win over. The progressives have shown pollsters that the issue of detained children gets the strongest emotional reaction from progressive whites:

PBS NewsHour/POLITICO

Buttigieg also used his endorsement of payments to migrants to portray himself as an immigrant and an ally of immigrants — despite the abundant evidence that economic migrants lower Americans’ wages and drive up Americans’ rents while boosting profits and stock values for Wall Street investors:

On the larger issue of immigration, my understanding of this issue isn’t theoretical. It is not something I formed in committee rooms in Washington. It begins with the fact that my household, my family, came from abroad. My father immigrated to this country and became a U.S. citizen. It comes from the fact that I’m the mayor of a city where neighborhoods that were left for dying are now coming back to life, largely because of the contributions [of immigrants] — mainly of Latino immigrants. And I’ve seen those same neighborhoods shut down, families huddling in church, panicking, just because of the rumor of an ICE raid. That does not make our country safe.

Buttigieg also suggested he would stop deportations of migrants who get across the U.S. border and would amnesty the population of at least eight million working illegals:

Can I look into the eyes of an eight-year-old boy whose father was deported — even though he had nothing so much as a traffic ticket against his name? I tried to think of something to tell that boy because I couldn’t tell him what he most wanted to hear, which is just that he was going to have his dad back. How can harming that young man possible make America safer? When I’m president, based on those experiences, I will make sure that this is a country of laws and values, and that means not only ending these unspeakably cruel practices at the border, but finally and truly fixing the immigration system that has needed a full overhaul since the 1980s. We cannot wait four years, ten years. We cannot wait any more: