Ben Carson presidential campaign, 2016/Immigration

	; ; Presidential candidate; Ben Carson
	Profession: ; Retired Pediatric Neurosurgeon;
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	Republican candidate:
	Donald Trump
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Ben Carson announced his presidential run on May 3, 2015.^[1]

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This page was current as of the 2016 election.

On December 18, 2015, Ben Carson said that mass deportation “sounds really good and gets you a lot of votes, but it’s not going to happen.” He warned that the farming industry would “collapse” if such a policy were implemented. Instead, The Hill reported, “Carson said he supports allowing a six-month window for certain undocumented workers to apply for guest worker permits. The workers must already have a job and a clean police record, he said, and they would not be extended voting rights.”^[2]

During a campaign event in Georgia on December 8, 2015, Carson discussed foreign policy and said, “When it comes to bringing in immigrants into our country from other places we have always welcomed people regardless of race, creed, religion but we have welcomed them to become Americans, to accept our way of life, not another way of life.” Carson also urged citizens to vote, saying, “The election that is coming up next year is critical to our country. America as we know it is gone.”^[3]

Carson said he would secure the U.S.-Mexico border “in less than a year” during a telephone town hall on November 12, 2015.^[4]

"Rapid-Fire Yes or No Q&A With Ben Carson"

In an October 21, 2015, interview with Glenn Beck, Carson said he supported building a border fence; fining companies that hire undocumented workers; prosecute those who cross the border illegally, as opposed to catch and release; and making English the official language. Regarding those in the nation without documents, Carson said he would allow a grace period for them to register as guest workers if they meet certain criteria, or they would face deportation.

In an October 22, 2015, interview with the Kansas City Star, Carson said that the Fourteenth Amendment “was primarily there for the rights of freedmen. It certainly wasn’t there to guarantee that a person here illegally could have a baby and use that as an anchor to stay. That wasn’t part of the intention of it.”^[5]

In the September 2015 GOP debate, Carson said that the primary goal with regard to immigration should be protecting the border. “If we don't seal the border, the rest of this stuff clearly doesn't matter. It's kind of ridiculous all the other things we talk about. We have the ability to do it, we don't have the will to do it,” said Carson. He then outlined a plan for allowing undocumented immigrants a six-month grace period to become guest workers in the U.S. Carson has maintained that this plan is not equivalent to granting amnesty.^[6]

On The Sean Hannity Show in August 2015, Carson called Jim Acosta from CNN an "idiot" because of his comments on border control in an earlier August 23, 2015, exchange. On the same day, Carson advocated for military experts to take over regulation of smuggling on the border. He said, "we need to turn this over to the military experts because this is a war we're engaged in."^[7]^[8]

At a rally in Phoenix, on August 18, 2015, Carson commented on Donald Trump’s call to end birthright citizenship, saying, “I know the 14th Amendment has been brought up recently, about anchor babies—and it doesn’t make any sense to me that people could come in here, have a baby and that baby becomes an American citizen. There are many countries in the world where they simply have recognized that and don’t allow that to occur.”^[9]

In an August 2015 interview on PBS, Carson discussed his immigration policy for people living and working in the United States without documentation. "[Y]ou still have 11.5 million people here, some of whom have never been anyplace else. Where are you going to send them to? We have to be pragmatic here. And those people, I would give an opportunity to become guest workers. They have to register. They have to pay a back tax penalty. And they have to pay taxes going forward, but they don’t have to live in the shadows at that point. And also we don’t collapse the farming industry, we don’t collapse the hotel industry and a bunch of other industries. It doesn’t give them citizenship. It doesn’t give them voting rights. If they want to get citizenship, they get in the back of the line and go through the same process as everybody else,” Carson said.^[10]

In response to the July 2, 2015, shooting death of a woman in San Francisco, by a Mexican citizen who had been deported five times, Carson advocated for the end of sanctuary cities where local law enforcement does not enforce federal immigration law.^[11]

On June 17, 2014, Carson proposed the following solutions to the immigration system:^[12]

He wrote, "Noncitizens would have to apply for a guest-worker permit and have a guaranteed job awaiting them. Taxes would be paid at a rate commensurate with other U.S. workers and special visas would allow for easy entry and egress across borders. Guest-worker status would be granted to individuals and not to groups. People already here illegally could apply for guest-worker status from outside of the country. This means they would have to leave first. They should in no way be rewarded for having broken our laws, but if they are wise, they will arrange with their employer before they leave to immediately offer them a legal job as soon as their application is received. When they return, they still would not be U.S. citizens, but they would be legal, and they would be paying taxes. Only jobs that are vacant as a result of a lack of interest by American citizens should be eligible for the guest-worker program."^[12]

Carson also argued that "We must create a system that disincentivizes illegal immigration and upholds the rule of law while providing us with a steady stream of immigrants from other nations who will strengthen our society."^[12]

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