Fox News "Hannity" - Transcript: Rand Paul proposes immigration ban

Interview

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HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." In response to the rise of Islamic terrorism around the world, Senator Rand Paul recently introduced a Bill to temporarily halt immigration from over 30 countries that are known to house high numbers of radical jihadists. Earlier today the Senate Judiciary Committee approved an amendment that says individuals must not be prevented from entering America based on their religion.

Joining us now, 2016 Republican presidential candidate, Senator Rand Paul. It was a non-binding resolution, it was basically a show resolution, but a lot of Republicans supported it. I really don't see that much difference between your resolution and Trump's resolution, or proposal, except that you just name countries. So really trying to do the same thing, because I assume you're listening to James Comey and James Clapper and all the other intelligence officials that are warning we don't have a good vetting system right now.

SEN. RAND PAUL, R-KY., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, absolutely. So I think it is a mistake to have a religious test, but I think it is also a mistake to take Hillary Clinton's position which is radical Islam is not a problem, or she is not going to name the problem. We have to know hot problem is and we have to know what their name if we are going to come at them.

My idea is that we do put a pause on immigration from about 34 countries primarily in the Middle East, and we say to ourselves, do we know who is coming into our country now. Do we know that they haven't overstayed their welcome or their visa?

Look, we were attacked by 9/11 by 19 hijackers who used legal immigration to come here. And I'm still not confident that we've fixed the problem that let those 19 hijackers in our country.        

HANNITY: Where is the support level? In other words I sense there is a political correctness that is dominating Washington politics these days. I think the American people showing that they think based on what the intelligence officials in this country are saying and based on what we learned about San Bernardino and based upon the House Homeland Security Chair in this program saying ISIS has a plan to infiltrate this country through the refugee population, the people in this country see things very differently than you guys in Washington. And I'm not really putting you in that group, so please don't take it personally.

PAUL: This would not be the first time the voters and people outside of Washington are smarter than the people inside of Washington. In fact I tell my compatriots travel outside of the beltway and meet people in America, because the thing is people in America would like to see more strict leads on who comes into the country.

We aren't doing anything. We have 11 million people in the country, and 40 percent of them who have come illegally, 40 percent of them came and overstayed their visa. We have no idea who they are, where they are, and we don't seem to care. But over a million people came from the Middle East in the last five years on a visa. Do we know where they are? Do we know if they were visitors or student, that they went home? We haven't got a clue.

HANNITY: I sat through a security briefing with I was with Rick Perry down at the border. Over 611,000 Texans were victims of crimes by illegal immigrants from 2008 to 14. That is a lot of crimes, including rape and murder. Those are people, citizens of our country, and citizens of the great state of Texas, victimized because we don't secure the border. I guess if it doesn't happen to me, I guess I don't have to worry about it is the mentality out there. But these are real people, real suffering, real crimes, and we're not doing anything about it.

PAUL: To put it in perspective, we spend hundreds of billions of dollars defending ourselves on the war on terrorism but we are not willing to do anything to defend our border.

And this is a real beef I have had with Marco Rubio and why I think he is weak on national defense is that he won't defend the border. I put forward I think a very common sense resolution to say we to have better vetting before we continue immigrating people from the Middle East, and I don't get any support from those who profess to be for national security.    
    
HANNITY: Before you got support from Ted Cruz. Didn't he support you on that?  
      
PAUL: Ted did, but the other side, the neoconservatives, Lindsey Graham, the Marco Rubios, they're all on the other side. And they want to say they're national security conservatives but they're not really willing to defend your border. And I think you've got to be able to defend your border. That's your first line of defense, you've got to be able to defend your border. And I don't think you're seriously wanting to defend your country if you don't want to defend the border.

HANNITY: I think these issues are getting bigger every day as it relates to this 2016 race. Senator, good to see you. Thank you for being with us.

PAUL: Thank you.

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