I have almost the same number of days left as Barack Obama has in the White House. So we are going to stay focused on this job. I am enjoying it a lot. And we are going to see if we can achieve some very good things before the end of the year.
Cubans must prove that they're political refugees. And if they can prove that they're really fleeing persecution, well, they would qualify as refugees.
Conservatives believe in traditional values. Not because we want to impose our views on anyone, but because to abandon those values would be to ignore our history. Americans are not the most generous people on earth because our laws make us generous. People do not contribute to charity in this country in record amounts because we have a tax break from it. We do so because this nation has been shaped by Judeo-Christian principles that teach us that we have an obligation to care for one another.
The American dream is not about how much money you make or how many buildings have your name on it.
I'm simply asking that people who arrive from Cuba receive the same treatment as any other immigrant who comes from another country. The only difference, obviously, is that the Cuban Adjustment Act will remain in effect, that a Cuban who arrives today from Cuba may remain in the U.S.
America is not a special country by accident. It did not happen on its own. It happened because for over 200 years, each generation before us did what needed to be done.
The American dream is about achieving happiness. When you become a fire fighter, a police officer or a teacher or a nurse, you know you're not going to become a billionaire. And what my parents achieved working as a bartender and a maid at a hotel after arriving here with nothing, no education, no money. The first words my dad learned in English where I'm looking for a job.You know what my parents achieved? They owned a home in a safe and stable neighborhood. They retired with dignity and they left all four of their children better off than themselves.
I think there's a growing amount of confusion about what conservatism is. And it is time for us to understand that conservatism is not built on personalities. Conservatism is not simply built on how angry you might seem from time to time. Conservatism is built on a set of principles and ideas that our nation desperately needs.
Free enterprise is the best economic system in the history of the world, because it is the only system where you can make poor people richer and you don't have to make rich people poor.
Conservatives believe that we need to defeat radical Islam not because we want war but because ISIS and other radical Islamist are enemies of peace and that's why we need a president, who in which under whom the best intelligence agencies in the world will find terrorists and the best military in the world will destroy them. And if we capture them alive, a president that will bring them to the United States. A president that will grant them a court-appointed lawyer, a president that will send these terrorists where they belong, to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Nowadays, Cubans who enter from Cuba with a visa do not receive any aid.
Cubans who arrive and can prove that they are refugees who are truly fleeing political persecution will continue to qualify as refugees. The only thing that I've asked for is to do away with automatic benefits granted to someone, basically, Cubans who come from Cuba, if it cannot be verified that they are refugees fleeing political persecution, so they will be treated the same way as any other immigrant who arrives in the United States, which is that legal immigrants in the United States don't have the right to any federal benefits for five years.
For over two centuries, each generation of Americans before us confronted and solved problems. They embraced opportunities and Americans have never had it easy. This was a nation founded by declaring independence for the most powerful empire in the world. This was a nation that faced a divisive and bloody civil war, two great world wars, a long cold war.
Why are there so many young conservatives now serving our country? I'll tell you why? Because we grew up in an era of Reagan. And Ronald Reagan looked and acted nothing like Donald Trump and look at the Democrats.
First, undoubtedly, there are some people who are coming from Cuba who immediately, or from any other country, benefit. But, what is the difference between that and someone who is coming from Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, etc.? That is, we are simply going to say that someone who comes from another country to the United States - the first five years they're here - they don't qualify for federal benefits. They may benefit from local benefits, state benefits. Those decisions belong to other jurisdictions.
I believe that the Cuban Adjustment Act must be re-examined.
I believe we must study which changes must be made now that the immigration system has changed, because we are seeing, I believe, that at this time we are inviting people to come to the U.S. on very dangerous trips.
The best thing that could happen for the president Donald Trump, and the country, is a full and credible investigation.
We have also seen an economic crisis that is very serious within Venezuela, we are seeing cutbacks, I believe even more are coming in terms of electricity. Government employees no longer work on Fridays, and that has not been enough.
[Nicolas Maduro] completely controls the judicial branch, controls the courts, has denied their basic rights and the responsibility that the legislative branch has in that country.
I don't want us to have a president that we constantly have to be explaining to our kids, I know that's what the president did but you shouldn't do that. I don't want that. We actually had a president like that not long ago. It was really bad.
A whole series of changes that are in the code, are in the laws of the United States. If Cuba changes its position toward its own people, well then the policy of the United States changes also. That is what I would go after. I believe that many of the changes that this President has made, President Obama, are in violation of that law.
I've always said that I'm open to changes in the relations between Cuba and the U.S., but that Cuba must make changes also.
Aren't we in the midst of a blitzkrieg, for a lack of a better term, of informational warfare conducted by Russian trolls under the command of Vladimir Putin?
[Cuba's goverment] is an anti-American government.
