were huddled with the Republican Trump at the White House<\/a>; afterward, Pelosi and Schumer announced a deal they said would protect young immigrants from deportation and grant some Republican demands on border security.<\/p>\nCarter reminded students that Obama, whom Carter supported, failed to win passage for the Dream Act — named for the sometimes sympathetic stories of the young immigrants — even when he had Democratic majorities on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n
The 39th president, who served one term from 1977 to 1981, blamed both major parties for an inability to pass any major immigration law overhaul since a 1986 law signed by President Ronald Reagan. Carter lost to Reagan in November 1980.<\/p>\n
Carter said members of his party have been too reluctant to make deals on border enforcement, though he clarified that technological investments would be better than Trump’s proposal for a physical wall. Carter said Republicans are too quick to dismiss discussions of “amnesty” for “longtime residents.”<\/p>\n
The deal between Democrats and Trump does not include a U.S-Mexico border wall that was a centerpiece of Trump’s presidential campaign.<\/p>\n
Beyond immigration, Carter told students he supports a single-payer health care system, and he recalled proposing a measure as president that would have phased in a “Medicare-for-all” structure by extending benefits first to children, then to older Americans as the federal budget allowed. That did not pass.<\/p>\n
Democratic support is growing for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ proposal to extend Medicare coverage to all Americans, a trend that Carter noted. Carter said earlier this year that he voted for Sanders over Hillary Clinton in Georgia’s 2016 Democratic presidential primary.<\/p>\n
He also told of collapsing earlier this year while working on a Habitat for Humanity project in Canada and being hospitalized. When he was released, he said, he asked what he owed. “Zero,” he recalled. “The Canadian taxpayers paid for my treatment.”<\/p>\n
Carter acknowledged to students the considerable expense of single-payer models and the political risks for his party if they anger the private insurance industry and push the tax hikes necessary to pay for universal coverage.<\/p>\n
Still, he concluded, “Theoretically, it’s the best system.”<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n
<\/i><\/p>\n
Article source: http:\/\/feeds.foxnews.com\/~r\/foxnews\/politics\/~3\/AlwOTKxUZq8\/ex-president-carter-give-trump-credit-on-forcing-immigration-debate.html<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday expressed optimism that President Donald Trump might break a legislative logjam with his six-month deadline for Congress to address the immigration status of 800,000-plus U.S. residents who were brought to the country illegally as children. Carter told Emory University students that the “pressures and the publicity that Trump has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-91094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}