At a campaign stop in Nevada Tuesday afternoon, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton plans to announce her support for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants living in the United States, reported Reuters.
A campaign aide told Reuters that Clinton is expected to say that a "true solution" to immigration reform must include "nothing less than a full and equal path to citizenship." Clinton will emphasize that any reform that stops short of providing a route to citizenship amounts to "merely a 'second-class' status," the aide said.
Clinton will only support change that "treats everyone with dignity and compassion, upholds the rule of law, protects our border and national security, and brings hard-working people out of the shadows and into the formal economy so they can pay taxes and contribute to our nation's prosperity," the aide told Reuters.
She will be speaking in a roundtable discussion with Rancho High School students in Las Vegas, where the student body is approximately 70 percent Hispanic, including many who would be eligible for special citizenship status under Obama's stalled immigration proposal. Twenty-eight percent of the Nevada population is Hispanic.
The immigration issue could play a critical role in the 2016 race. In the 2008 Democratic primaries, Hispanics voted for Clinton by a nearly 2-to-1 margin over Obama, according to Pew Research Center. President Obama was strongly supported by Hispanic voters during both of his presidential bids, while GOP nominee Mitt Romney struggled with the issue, only receiving 27 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2012 and falling behind in key immigration states like Florida, Nevada and Colorado.
Republican candidates Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush have already come out in support of similar but less comprehensive immigration reform. While neither currently supports a full path to citizenship, their proposals will set a more even playing field and likely appeal to more Hispanics than Romney's approach.
The only other declared Democratic presidential candidate, independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, has also said he supports a full path to citizenship.
