Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina slammed Donald Trump’s immigration plan as “gibberish” and “nonsensical” and said it would “kill the Republican Party.”
Graham, a GOP presidential candidate who has frequently sparred with Trump, said the billionaire’s plan to deport all undocumented immigrants and force Mexico to pay for a border prove that Trump is “shallow” and “hasn’t spent any time looking at how this system works and what’s practical.”
“I don’t think there’s 10 votes in the United States Senate for this plan,” Graham told reporters Monday in Iowa. “I promise you no Democrat’s going to vote for this, I certainly wouldn’t vote for it. You’re not going to get 11 million people out of this country. That’s just not practical, that’s going to kill the Republican Party. It’s self-deportation on steroids.”
Graham was a member of a group of bipartisan senators who crafted a compromise immigration plan that passed in the U.S. Senate in 2013 but was stalled by the GOP-led House. He has long advocated for comprehensive immigration reform.
Trump on Sunday released a policy paper detailing for the first time how he would address illegal immigration in the United States, pledging to boost border security and also curtail legal immigration into the United States. Trump said this weekend on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that all undocumented immigrants “have to go.”
One of Trump’s proposals didn’t draw a knee-jerk rejection from Graham, however — the plan to end birthright citizenship.
Graham, who has previously called birthright citizenship a “mistake,” said Monday that he would support that idea because it is “a magnet” that attracts people to move to the U.S. illegally.
First, though, Graham said the U.S. would need to “reform the current system.”
Graham also slammed Trump’s plan to defeat ISIS, which includes bombing some Iraqi oil fields and seizing control of others to pay for services in the U.S.
Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called that proposal foolish and said it shows Trump “has no idea what the world is actually like.”
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, speaking in Charleston, South Carolina, on Monday, said he appreciates that Trump has an immigration plan, but that the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S. need to be dealt with in a way that’s “realistic.”
He also said the U.S. needs “to have border security done in a way to lessen the number of people who are crossing the border.”
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told CNN earlier Monday that he supported building a wall in select, urban areas along the border, but said he had no expectation that Mexico would pay for it.