{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.hirono.senate.gov/news/hirono-estimated-7000-hawaii-immigrants-will-benefit-from-obama-action", "Hirono: Estimated 7,000 Hawaii Immigrants Will Benefit from Obama Action", "2014-11-20", "2014", "2014-11", "Democrat", "House", "HI", "Mazie Hirono", "H001042", "www.hirono.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Hirono: Estimated 7,000 Hawaii Immigrants Will Benefit from Obama Action\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n                \r\n                Sen. Mazie Hirono calls the president's action a good first step but is hopeful a new Congress will do more to help immigrant families.\r\n                \r\n            \r\n            \r\n            \r\n                \r\n                    By:\u00a0\r\n                    Nick Grube\r\n                \r\n            \r\n            \r\n                \r\n                \r\n                \r\n            Thursday, November 20, 2014\r\n            \n\t\n\r\n            \r\n            U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono talked with Civil Beat shortly after President Barack Obama on Thursday announced executive action to bolster border security and protect nearly 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation.\r\nWhile she said the plan is a good start, she agrees with the president that comprehensive immigration reform is needed, and that it should include a path to citizenship for what\u2019s estimated to be more than 11 million people living in the shadows.\r\nHirono has a unique view on the matter : She is the only member of the Senate who is an immigrant herself.\r\nShe\u2019s the go-to lawmaker in the Hawaii delegation when it comes to immigration, and she was instrumental in getting several provisions included in a comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed the Senate last year.\r\nOne amendment in particular would have restored Medicaid eligibility for migrants from Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands who are allowed to live in the U.S. under the Compact of Free Association.\r\nPF Bentley/Civil Beat\r\n\r\nU.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono is the only immigrant lawmaker in the Senate.\r\nCIVIL BEAT: What does President Obama\u2019s executive action mean in the overall immigration discussion that\u2019s taking place in the U.S?\r\nMAZIE HIRONO: I know that the president\u2019s action gave a lot of people in our country hope that we can move toward comprehensive immigration reform. This is a really great step toward allowing 5 million or so people to come out of the shadows to be able to work, to be able to have families, to pay their taxes so I think this is a really positive step.\r\nHowever, as the president says, this is not permanent, and he continues to call for comprehensive immigration reform which is what we have been fighting for for over a year now. And the Senate did pass a comprehensive bill that was a compromise.\r\nThat bill passed in a Democrat-controlled Senate and died in the Republican-controlled House. Now Republicans control both chambers, so how can we expect comprehensive immigration reform to move forward?\r\nThe bill that passed the Senate was a bipartisan bill, and I think that the Senate Republicans and the Republicans in the House of Representatives see the cry for immigration reform in our country. The majority of the people want humane, comprehensive reform that does protect our borders but also enables 11 million undocumented people to be on the road to citizenship.\r\nThat is what the American people want, and I hope that what we got from this election is the desire of the American people that we get important things done in Congress. And comprehensive immigration reform is important. Both Republicans and Democrats agree that this is a broken system that needs to be fixed.\r\nWhat does comprehensive immigration reform look like to you?\r\nIt would continue to have family unity as a guiding principle because our immigration policies up to now have made a priority of keeping families united. I\u2019d like that to continue as a guiding principle for immigration reform. At the same time, I very much support a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented people in our country who right now are living with the fear of deportation every single day.\r\nWe would also like to encourage more people with STEM backgrounds and those kinds of experiences to be able to stay here after they get their STEM degrees from our colleges.\r\nA lot of this was in the comprehensive reform bill that we passed and in particular for Hawaii, we got a number of amendments into the bill that passed the Senate that addressed particularly situations in Hawaii.\r\nFor example, it\u2019s really important that the Filipino World War II vets who fought side by side with American troops are able to reunite with their children in the Philippines. And their children who are in the Philippines, who are in their 60s or older, have been waiting for decades because of the backlog of people wanting to come to our country.\r\nFor Hawaii, restoring Medicaid eligibility for Compact migrants is critical because the state of Hawaii spends some $30 million to $40 million a year to provide healthcare for our Compact migrant families. And we would like to get reimbursed for that through having them because eligible, once again, for Medicaid.\r\nTourism is very important to our economy, and we know that if Hong Kong were to become eligible for visa waiver status that many more visitors from Hong Kong would come to Hawaii. So that was another amendment that would have a particularly beneficial impact on Hawaii.\r\nHawaii has unique immigration challenges, so what does Obama\u2019s executive action mean for us?\r\nThere are estimates that we\u2019ve been provided that say there are some 7,000 people in Hawaii who would be impacted by the president\u2019s actions. So these would be DREAMers and these would be parents of U.S. citizen children in Hawaii.\r\nHow feasible is it that Congress will be able to pass comprehensive immigration reform before the temporary protections expire or are undone by a new president?\r\nI am hopeful. If we have another president who cares as much as this president does about our families and keeping our families united and enabling people who are fearful of being deported every day, then I hope that next president will continue the executive order. But as this president says and I agree, we need to do legislation that\u2019s going to put in the type of reforms that we\u2019re talking about.\r\nPresident Obama said immigrants are an important part of bolstering the U.S. economy, what immediate impacts do you see from his executive action?\r\nWhat the impact of this will be to our country nationwide is in the hundreds of millions of dollars because there will be payroll taxes they will be paying for Social Security \u2014 without getting those benefits, by the way \u2014 and they will be buying products so it\u2019s going to be a boon to our economy.\r\nBut at the same time I think we shouldn\u2019t lose sight of the fact that the president is reflecting the values of our country with what he\u2019s doing. He\u2019s keeping families together. What good is it to separate parents from their American-born children and deporting these parents and putting their children in a foster care situation? It doesn\u2019t make a lot of sense to me. The value of keeping families together should not be lost.\r\nCritics say the president\u2019s action will encourage more people to enter the country illegally, how would you address those concerns?\r\nThe president also talked about stricter border control. What he\u2019s saying is we should focus our resources on identifying risk and identifying people who pose safety risks to our people. Those are the people we ought to be identifying and deporting \u2014 not our families.\r\nIs there anything more you\u2019d like to add?\r\nThis is a broken system and we need to enact comprehensive immigration reform, and I call on the leaders of the House and Senate to follow the wishes of the American people.\r\nThis transcript has been edited for length and clarity.\r\nRead the entire piece at:\u00a0http://www.civilbeat.com/2014/11/hirono-estimated-7000-hawaii-immigrants-will-benefit-from-obama-action/.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.hirono.senate.gov/news/hirono-estimated-7000-hawaii-immigrants-will-benefit-from-obama-action"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 3.50118987262249, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}