00:00I'm from Andrea Chisholm from Television Jamaica.
00:04Secretary Rubio, given changes to US immigration policies,
00:08there are some Jamaicans who are afraid to travel back
00:12to Jamaica, even though they are legitimate green card holders.
00:16What assurances can you give to those individuals
00:18that they will have no difficulty returning
00:20to the United States?
00:21Well, yeah, green card or residency?
00:25I mean, permanent residence, you're asking me about?
00:28Yes, OK.
00:29OK.
00:29And secondly, what problems, if any,
00:31does America have with China's investment in Jamaica?
00:35Well, look, I mean, China is a rich and powerful country.
00:37Our problem is not investment.
00:40Our problem is predatory practices.
00:41That's what we're concerned about.
00:43What we have seen all over the world
00:44is that China comes in and says, here's
00:46a bunch of money for a project they never build.
00:48They bring their own workers to do the work.
00:50They don't hire the locals.
00:51They bring their own workers.
00:53And oftentimes, it comes attached
00:54with a huge loan that can never be repaid,
00:57and now they hold it over your head forever.
00:59That's our concern.
01:00Our concern is unfair practices, too, where they come in.
01:03They're government subsidized companies,
01:04underbid everybody because they're subsidized.
01:07But then they come back and charge you
01:09whatever they want because now they've got the contract.
01:11So these are the things that we remain very concerned about.
01:14Again, not specifically about Jamaica, but in general.
01:16And so that's what we'll continue to highlight.
01:20On the first point, I would say, let
01:22me talk about that if you're a green card holder,
01:24you're not illegally in the United States.
01:27You're a green card holder.
01:28You are legally in the United States.
01:29What the president has said, and I
01:30don't know how anybody can disagree with this,
01:32every country in the world has immigration laws.
01:35And immigration laws, if you don't enforce them,
01:37you don't have immigration laws.
01:38Over the last few years, we've had, what, 13, 14,
01:4015 million people enter the United States
01:43unlawfully and irregularly.
01:44No country in the world can assume that.
01:46By the way, that's not unique to us, right?
01:48Even here in Jamaica, you face challenges of migration.
01:51And it's not that we don't sympathize
01:53with people that are leaving difficult circumstances.
01:56It's that no society can absorb mass migration
01:59from anywhere in the world.
02:00You just can't do it.
02:01And we're facing that challenge.
02:03That's not specific to Jamaica.
02:04I'm just speaking in general.
02:05And so the president is doing something
02:07that, frankly, hasn't been done in a long time.
02:09He's enforcing our immigration laws.
02:10And that's what we're doing.
02:12So if you're a green card holder,
02:13you're not illegally in the United States.
02:16I think the challenge is, for those
02:18who are illegally in the United States,
02:19we have to have immigration laws.
02:21They have to be followed.
02:22I mean, I don't know why that's an unreasonable demand.
02:25And frankly, I mean, Jamaica is not
02:26a major source of illegal migration, to be frank.
02:29It's not even in the top 10 or top 20, for that matter,
02:31I don't think.
02:33But that said, we are enforcing our immigration laws.
02:36Because here's what happens if you don't.
02:38You'll get another 12 million people.
02:40And if tomorrow, Jamaica announced,
02:43anybody who wants to come can come in.
02:44You're going to get a lot of people, too.
02:46And it's going to be very disruptive.
02:48So we need to have immigration laws.
02:50And we need to enforce them.
02:51And that's what we are, that's what the president is doing.
02:54That's what he promised voters he would do.
02:56And that's what we're going to continue to do.
02:59But if you're a green card holder,
03:00you're illegally in the United States, unless, unless,
03:03and I say this because a lot of these people come,
03:05unless you're some student visa holder who's
03:08a sympathizer of some terrorist organization
03:10and is running around in our streets
03:11like a lunatic, burning down buildings
03:13and attacking students at universities.
03:15If you're one of these lunatics that's
03:17going to put on a mask over your face
03:19and break into a student union center and harass students,
03:21and we wouldn't have let you in in the first place.
03:23If you had told us that, if you told us,
03:26I'm going to America not just to study at your university,
03:28but to tear up your campus, we would have never let you in.
03:31And if you do that, once you come into the United States,
03:34we're going to kick you out.
03:35We're going to do that.
03:36And I don't care, I don't care what terrorist organization
03:39is supporting, we're going to kick you out.
03:40If you're a gang member, we're going to kick you out.
03:43If you're one of these violent gang members
03:45that's coming to the United States,
03:47then we're going to kick you out.
03:48That we're going to do.
03:49There's no doubt about it.
03:50But the president's very committed to that.
03:53But if you're a green card holder
03:55and you're not any of these things, you're going to be fine.
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