CNN's Chris Cuomo tells legal immigration critics 'if you don't like what America is, you leave America'

published 10 August 2018

CNN's Chris Cuomo has a solution for critics of legal immigration to the United States: Go find somewhere else to live.

On Wednesday night, Fox News host Laura Ingraham said that "in some parts of the country, it does seem like the America that we know and love doesn't exist anymore." She blamed "massive demographic changes," which "none of us ever voted for and most of us don't like," and said "much of this is related to both illegal, and in some cases legal immigration, that of course progressives love."

On Cuomo Prime Time Thursday night, Cuomo was shocked that Ingraham included legal immigration in her tirade. She's relying on the false belief that people are on her side, Cuomo notes, because "84 percent of those surveyed in June called legal immigration a good thing, and you know what, that number should be higher." Cuomo said illegal entry to the U.S. is the issue at hand, but what Ingraham and people like her are doing is "objectively ugly." They are saying "that people are a problem, not just the entry. It's the 'who' for them, not just the 'how.'" Cuomo's grandparents were immigrants, he said, and he refuses to let immigrants "be discounted as some abhorrent aspect of a pure place."

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Willingly and unwillingly, immigrants built the United States, "paid for her, enriched her, and fought for her, and we have to remember that sacrifice," Cuomo said. "To turn a phrase back on our 'us versus them' friends, if you don't like what America is, you leave America. America does not need to become great again, she will only become greater by being more of what she already is." Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.