The 12-term Texas congressman spent the better part of a 25-minute address thinking aloud about the thorny subject. He talked about how Americans are more accepting of outsiders when the economy is good, but when trouble looms there is a search for scapegoats.
"I believe Hispanics have been used as scapegoats, to say, they're the problem instead of being a symptom maybe of a problem with the welfare state," Paul told the group. "In Nazi Germany they had to have scapegoats to blame and they turned on the Jews.
"Now there's a lot of antagonism and resentment turned just automatically on immigrants," he continued. "You say, no not immigrants, it's just illegal immigrants. I do believe in legal immigration. I want to have a provision to obey those laws. You have to understand this in the context of the economy."
Paul said he's not one of those politicians who believes that "barbed-wire fences and guns on our border will solve any of our problems." That's not, he said, the American way. And he doesn't think that a national identification card is the way to go.
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