Retiring Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said on Wednesday that the president’s coming executive order on immigration will turn “illiterate”’ immigrants into Democratic voters.
“The social cost will be profound on the U.S. taxpayer — millions of unskilled, illiterate, foreign nationals coming into the United States who can’t speak the English language,” she said, according to the Washington Post. “Even though the president says they won’t be able to vote, we all know that many, in all likelihood, will vote.”
{mosads}“The president has a very single-minded vision. He’s looking at new voters for 2016…. People do vote without being a citizen. It’s a wink and a nod, we all know it’s going to happen,” she added.
The Minnesota Republican was also pressed on why she chose to refer to the program’s likely beneficiaries as “illiterate.”
“Some are, some aren’t,” she said. “I’ve been down to the border. The reason why I would say that is I spent four days at the border and spoke to American Hispanics on the border. That’s what they told me.”
The order is not expected to grant citizenship status — but offer some illegal immigrants temporary legal status. The White House began a program in 2012 that gives similar benefits to young immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children.
Bachmann tweeted out the Washington Post story on Wednesday night and said that it was “creating a false perception of what I actually said.”