An article came out last night highlighting a new possible strategy for the House GOP Leadership to push through immigration reform. The article was the first I’d heard of this plan and mentions possibly borrowing language from a stand-alone military service bill that I’d supported in concept, and sneaking parts of it into the upcoming NDAA bill. I have a problem with this strategy for several reasons: 1) I’ve never been okay with Nancy Pelosi, the House GOP Leadership, or anyone else pulling a fast one on the American people by trying to sneak unrelated language into a larger bill. It’s not transparent, and it’s exactly why Americans don’t trust Washington. 2) Those of you who follow my votes know that I’ve always had concerns with these NDAA bills because of individual liberty conflicts involving indefinite detention. There’s enough bad stuff to worry about in the NDAA without adding more problems. 3) I have always been, and remain completely opposed to the idea of amnesty, that we should simply wipe the slate clean for those who broke our laws and our trust. My position continues to be that we must first secure the border and enforce our immigration laws, and not do that as part of some large comprehensive bill. We have to control who comes into our country and that can only happen by securing the border and addressing the massive amount of visa overstays first. I was willing to have a conversation about the possibility of allowing some of the children who came here with their parents illegally to earn citizenship through military service. But that conversation should have been debated as part of a stand-alone bill that could not be conferenced with a broader bill, and then even only after we had made progress on enforcing our current immigration laws. I will not allow Washington to pull their sneaky tricks on the public, so I am withdrawing the conditional support I had for the stand-alone military service legislation and have warned leadership that if they attempt to add this language as an amendment to the NDAA that I will vote against the entire bill for that reason alone. Hope this clears things up, and makes it perfectly clear where I stand.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 13:57:13 +0000
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