LIHUE — Cheers erupted Tuesday at Mariachi’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant, as President Donald Trump made his way to the podium in Washington, D.C., for his first State of the Union Address.
About 70 people from the Republican Party of Kauai gathered to watch.
As the camera panned to 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, the crowd clapped and yelled, “feel the Bern.”
During his speech, Trump talked of the four pillars of his immigration reform.
“What I think is good about his immigration policy is he is giving a path of citizenship to those who want to be Americans,” said Ron Heller of Lihue.
One thing Heller said he didn’t understand is how someone can live in this country for 20 years and not become a citizen.
“I don’t know why they wouldn’t want to,” Heller said. “Both sides of my family are immigrants. They came to this country and wanted to be citizens.”
The good thing about Kauai, Heller said, is there are residents here who are from other countries, but they have become citizens.
“We’re living in a wonderful place on the planet,” he said.
Jo Thompson, who has lived in Hawaii for 30 years and teaches in Kilauea, said she thinks Trump’s tax reform bill is a good thing.
She said she originally moved to Hawaii from Dearborn, Michigan, where the car industry once thrived.
“I see these companies coming back to America,” she said. “It’s great.”
Trump’s corporate tax reform, she said, will trickle down and benefit all Americans. She said tax reform will end up with more citizens being employed and less handouts.
“Let’s not forget about these companies giving employees raises because of the tax reform,” she said.
GOP County Chair Steve Yoder said he loved that Trump talked about immigration reform.
“The theme when Trump ran was to obey the law, rather then to bend the law,” he said. “If we want to change the law, it needs to be through legislation, not a pen and a phone like it was under the Obama Administration,” Yoder said.
Yoder said people who immigrate to America need to benefit our country, not take away from it. People quote the poem from the Statue of Liberty, he said.
“When people came to this country between the 1880s to 1921, they came with the expectation they would be working hard, because there was no welfare,” Yoder said.
When you come to America, Yoder said, you’re American. That’s what is trying to change, the uniqueness of being an American.
“People who come to America aren’t afro-Americans, they’re not Arab Americans, they’re not Hispanic Americans, they’re just Americans. I don’t believe in hyphenating. There’s no division, we’re just Americans.”
“There shouldn’t be this division in our country,” Yoder said.
Quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Yoder said, “people should be judge by the content of their heart.”
