Matt Mahan

But like many of the people I grew up with, if you were

Essentially, if maybe tacitly welcomed here because we had an ag industry or a construction industry that needed low cost labor, and you came, started a family, started working, paid taxes, raising kids here who were born here, who are US citizens, the only practical and ethical solution is for parties to put the hyper-partisanship aside, come together, and come to a grand bargain in which we secure the border,

We deport those committing violent crime who are undocumented and we create a pathway to some sort of legal status.

If citizenship is a bridge too far for that older generation that came earlier, so be it.

But their kids are US citizens and

They deserve to still live with their parents.

And I think we've got to find the approach that respects people's humanity and is practical and ethical.

And I'm incredibly disappointed, frankly, with both parties for years of kicking the can down the road.

And I will absolutely stand up to protect

undocumented residents who are playing by the rules, who are doing the most American thing.

And I get all the arguments around lawful immigration.

Let's secure the border and set up a proper system of lawful immigration going forward and not create a bad incentive.

So let's do that and then create this pathway to legal status.

But what we've seen play out in Minneapolis is horrible for the country.

We're seeing citizens arrested, even killed.

This is not working, and I don't think it's ethical.

So my sense growing up in an ag town that historically has probably been about a third undocumented is that the primary incentive for the parties to not solve this problem is that a lot of people became very wealthy.

A lot of industries did very well by having access to low cost abundant labor and plenty of the business interests that did really well

ag construction and otherwise.

I mean, historically, this would have been say the meat packing industry, right?