Fifth GOP presidential primary debate: on Immigration

Donald Trump: We're going to have the largest deportation in US history

Nikki Haley: Border crossers are families, not criminals: but e-Verify

Q [to HALEY]: Gov. DeSantis and also Donald Trump are attacking you for that comment in 2015 in which you said undocumented immigrants should not be called "criminals." The full context is you said, We don't need to talk about them as criminals. They're not. They're families that want a better life, and they're desperate to get here." Do you still feel that way?

HALEY: When I was governor, we passed the toughest illegal immigration law in the country. In passing that toughest illegal immigration law in the country, we passed E-Verify, which I want to take national, which is where businesses have to prove that the people they hire are in this country legally. I passed it within six months of being governor. Ron didn't pass it for five years. He only waited to pass it when he decided to run for president.

Nikki Haley: Admit immigrants on merit, not on random quotas

Ron DeSantis: Charge fees on worker remittances to foreign countries

DESANTIS: We will build a wall. We will actually have Mexico pay for it, in the way that I thought Donald Trump [meant]. We're going to charge fees on remittances that workers send to foreign countries, billions of dollars. We'll build the wall. He also promised record deportations. Donald Trump deported fewer people than Barack Obama did when he was president. Biden's let in 8 million people just in four years. They all have to go back. We have to enforce the rule of law in this country. Biden has failed in this endeavor. He has not taken care that the laws of this country be faithfully executed. Do not trust Nikki Haley with illegal immigration--she's on tape at the Aspen Institute saying it's disrespectful to illegal aliens to say that they're criminals. They're violating the law. That's what's disrespectful.

Ron DeSantis: Children born here to illegal immigrants aren't "anchors"

[DeSantis is proposing to overturn a Supreme Court precedent from 1898]: Fact Check by The Guardian, Mar. 16 2020 Children born on US soil can't just immediately safeguard their family members from deportation. A US citizen must be 21 years old before they can sponsor their parents for a green card. Even if parents do get a green card, they have a five-year holding period before they can finally apply for naturalization. In the end, the so-called "anchor baby" pathway to citizenship is at least a 26-year endeavor, even for those who entered the US legally.