“I know that the issues of immigration are hard, and that people of good faith and integrity disagree about the specifics of immigration, but I hope that as a country we can come to a place where we acknowledge how important immigration and immigrants have been to who we are as Americans, to why we have led in economic revolution after economic revolution,” she added.

Rice noted that the comprehensive immigration reform could help secure the border.

“I think there is a tendency to think that the border security problem has to be completely and totally solved first,” she said. “You’re not going to get there. But if you have sound immigration policies, it is actually easier to have border enforcement, I am a fan of doing both together, but I wouldn’t want it to be thought that comprehensive immigration reform is actually going to make the border security problem harder. I think it’s the other way around.”