Kansas Leader: Assimilation Is Important Part of Immigration

Assimilation is an important part of GOP nominee Donald Trump's immigration plan, said Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach Thursday, and it's something he has not heard a presidential candidate or even a president talk about for a long time.

"It's so important that we welcome immigrants here, but that's just the first half," Kobach, who is advising Trump on immigration and on a planned wall on the Mexican border, told Fox News' "Fox and Friends" program on the day after Trump made his policy address on immigration Wednesday night.

"You have to make people become American, and that's something we should not be ashamed of," Kobach continued. "Adopting our values, and the way you do that is you control the numbers for one thing. If they're just unremitting wave after wave with no pause there's no incentive for anyone to become American."

But when there is more screening, such as Trump calls for in his immigration plan, then schools can become the "crucible of assimilation that they used to be in the past, but they're not anymore," Kobach said. "He was really digging deep in this speech, and it was just wonderful to hear.

Kobach complained about a national "multiculturalism ethic" that is "constantly repudiating American values."

"We have a new person talking about it," said Kobach. "That's an important part of the speech."

Trump also mentioned protecting American workers' wages three times, Kobach said that was an important part of his speech.

"If you look at every single industry, where illegal immigration has come in and sort of swamped the workforce, wages have gone through the floor," said Kobach. "That's hotel cleaning. That's meat packing plants. There's some aspects of construction. So what you have to do if you want to protect those at the bottom of the economic ladder, which includes a lot of people who are new immigrants of Hispanic ethnicity and African-American 'citizens' you have to protect them from."

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