Scott Jennings: Democrats’ ‘New Line of Attack’ Is Food Will Be More Expensive if Immigrants Working in Agriculture Are Deported

TAPPER: “Scott Jennings, I’ll start with you. Farm industry officials and economists tell CNN that if Trump indeed goes forward with this mass deportation plan and rounds up the millions of undocumented immigrants who are working in our agricultural sector, they say high grocery prices are only going to get higher. You know, obviously getting rid of people who have committed crimes beyond coming into the country illegally is one thing, but deporting people who are paying taxes, keeping the food and agriculture industries running, doing jobs that native-born Americans don’t want to do, are not willing to do, won’t this actually hurt the Americans who are already so frustrated about high prices in grocery stores?”

JENNINGS: “I think a few things. Number one, Donald Trump was elected to do this. He ran on it, made it clear what he wanted to do. The American people voted for it. And so, some people are watching this, going, thank God, a politician who’s planning to follow through on their promises. Number two, there’s like 1.3 to 1.6 million illegal immigrants who’ve already received deportation orders from a court. I think he could start there. Number three, there’s another population of people who are violent. You could also go there before you ever get to people who are sort of working in industries, and maybe during the course of all that time, maybe, just maybe, the Congress and the White House could figure something out about how to balance our illegal immigration crisis with the need for agricultural labor. Final point. I don’t remember anybody having these kinds of meltdowns when Barack Obama deported 5 million people. It is not uncommon for the executive Branch to deport illegal immigrants. That happens in every administration. Obama deported more than most, and I don’t remember any of this kind of meltdown. And the crisis has only gotten worse. So, I think Donald Trump’s doing the right thing and most Republicans would agree it is a national emergency.”

TAPPER: “Who’s having a meltdown?”

JENNINGS: “I mean, everybody seems to be on the same sheet of music today that this is going to mess up the agriculture industry and drive the grocery prices. I have seen numerous pieces on it. I’ve seen — everybody seems to be out there talking about it. And so, it strikes me, Jake, that Democrats, this is their new line of attack, that Donald Trump’s got a plan to raise your grocery prices simply by following through on his campaign promises. And I don’t — I just don’t think it’s true.”

TAPPER: “I mean, I’ve been covering this issue for — since the first Bush Administration in 2001. I mean, this is always one of the issues with it, is that there are a lot of undocumented immigrants who work for the agricultural sector. And there’s always concerns about, are those people actually going to be deported? And if so, what happens to prices for, you know, regular folk just trying to make a — make an honest living and buy some eggs.”