Tag: Kirsten Gillibrand

Is Senator-Designate Gillibrand Shifting Her Position On Immigration?

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor
Gillibrand

Gillibrand (Image: El Diario/AP)

The immigration-related backlash against the designation of Kirsten Gillibrand continued over the weekend, when New York’s main Hispanic newspaper El Diario/La Prensa called the congresswoman “a disappointing choice” to succeed Hillary Clinton as U.S. Senator from New York.

In the meantime, Gillibrand –who will take the oath of office Tuesday— met with Queens elected officials and local leaders and promised to be more open-minded about the issue.

She also gave a one-on-one interview to local news channel NY1. Some of her remarks were interpreted as a shift in tone on the hotly-contested issue of immigration reform, although after listening to the entire interview that doesn’t seem to be the case.

“I think amnesty is the wrong approach,” Gillibrand said, in the quote that El Diario highlighted. “I would do it very differently, I would right-size immigration and make sure that every person who wants to be working in this country legally has a way to be here legally and to come in properly and make it so that they never have to worry about it.”

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In New York, Immigrant Advocates Join the Chorus Questioning Gillibrand's Nomination to U.S. Senate

Anti-gun activists are howling against Gov. David Patterson’s nomination of Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to succeed Hillary Clinton as the junior senator from New York.

But the Second Amendment isn’t the only issue likely to cause trouble for Gillibrand, judging from a statement released Friday by the New York Immigration Coalition.

“Now that she will be representing a far broader and more diverse constituency, Senator-Designee Gillibrand must reconsider her positions on immigration,” Chung-Wha Hong, the NYIC’s executive director, said in the statement.

As a U.S. representative, Hong said, Gillibrand has taken positions on immigration “that are deeply troubling, to say the least.”

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