Trump vs. Pope Francis: Who's right on immigration?

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Trump vs. Pope Francis: Who's right on immigration?

The Donald wants a wall; the pontiff wants US to open its doors

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Pope Francis Expected to Challenge Congress on Immigration Next Week

Michelle Fields: We need the secure our border, not just for national security issues but for fiscal reasons. Democrats and leaders around the world are criticizing America saying we are not generous, that we're not accepting as many migrants as we should. If you look at the world population, the U.S. Houses 5 percent of the world population. Yet we accept 20 percent of all migrants worldwide. I think that's pretty generous. We are in debt. Our welfare system is strained. We can't afford to continue to let tons of people in.

Jonathan Hoenig: I disagree with Michelle, and the Pope and Donald Trump. Trump wants to deport immigrants. The pope wants to take care of them. They are both wrong. What is the role of government in this situation? It is to protest people from legitimate threat like Islamists, rapists, murderers. People want to work here. Immigrants, refugees—they're not threats, they're values.

Jessica Tarlov: I'm somewhere in the middle, which is a nice place to be. It's really bad karma to agree with Donald Trump over the Pope. I just want to put that out there. Not as a religious person but generally speaking. What I would add is there is a way to get money out of these people. If we make citizens they will start paying taxes across the board. You're going to make billions of dollars this way. Donald Trump's plan is going to cost -- Politico put it at $166 billion. We are also talking about inhumane treatment, tearing apart families, the fiscal strain of deportation.

Juan Williams: This is incredible to me. In fact, we are the ones ripping off the immigrants. They are the ones that pay taxes and get no entitlement programs.

Wayne Rogers: You heard me say it a million times on this program; if you start with the word "illegal", in other words illegal immigrants, you've got nowhere to go. If they are illegal, they are illegal. That's the end of it before it starts.

Median Household Income Falls 1.5 percent Last Year; Down 6.5 percent From 2007

Wayne Rogers: The statistics say we are 6.5 percent worse off than we were six years ago. You can't argue with the numbers. The numbers are what they are. Maybe somebody wants to feel good about it. Some sections of the economy are better off, but as an overall thing, no.

Juan Williams: As Wayne said, let's look at the numbers. The unemployment level is 5.1 percent.
I think Mitt Romney said he was hoping to get it down to 6 percent.

Michelle Fields: The reason why the unemployment rate is down is not because Obama is some economic superhero who came in and saved the economy; it's because we have people that have completely given up on work, a record number of people who stopped looking for a job, a record number of people in part-time jobs. The idea that people are doing fine and dandy—no, if you talk to the average American they don't feel the recovery. Poverty is going up: 14.8 percent. What kind of recovery is it?

Jessica Tarlov: It's a recovery fit for the kind of recession he inherited.

Jonathan Hoenig: The statistics might be better, but a lot of people aren't necessarily feeling it. The stock market has gone up. I think a lot of that has to do with the Fed's easy-money policy. That has to do with Facebook and Amazon and the like. Look at some of the statistics, the poverty rates. What's going up is food stamp usage, student loan debt, and all types of entitlements. And specifically among certain groups like African Americans. This is well documented.

Job Cuts in Focus as Former CEO Carly Fiorina Gains Traction in Race

Jonathan Hoenig: The CEO isn't Santa Claus. They can't just pass out jobs and pass out wealth because it feels good and it's Christmas. They have to make real hard choices. Not the Hillary Clinton hard choices about what emails to delete, but actual hard choices about allocating billions dollars of assets. While at Hewlett-Packard, Carly not only doubled revenue, but she exemplified the leadership, knowledge and the success not only at HP, but on the debate stage.

Jessica Tarlov: There is no question there is fat to trim in Washington. Should we vote someone into the highest office in the land because they laid off 30,000 people? I don't think so. We should talk about her other policies. She doesn't want to raise minimum wage. She's promoting a false narrative about Planned Parenthood that is incredibly destructive to women's health.

Michelle Fields: Our government is bloated. We need someone to cut a lot of jobs that are unnecessary bureaucratic positions. I'm not sure Carly is the perfect person for that. I don't think she made a great CEO. We saw the stock plummet 45 percent under her watch.

Wayne Rogers: She did a terrible job as a CEO. I mean, it's embarrassing. As far as cutting jobs, you could cut whole agencies out of the federal government and not miss them.