Washington Times
By Dave Sherfinski
April 21, 2015
Rep.
Mo Brooks, Alabama Republican, said Republicans like Sen. Marco Rubio
of Florida led efforts to “open the floodgates” on immigration because
of their support for
a comprehensive 2013 bill that would have provided a pathway to
citizenship for most of the approximately 11 million illegal immigrants
in the country.
Mr.
Brooks said that, coupled with the number of illegal immigrants that
could be granted legalization through the bill and the increase in the
number of lawful immigrants,
“over a 10-year period of time, the number of foreigners who would be
either legalized because they’re already here or would be allowed to
come into the United States of America would be anywhere in the
neighborhood of 44 to 57 million.”
“Now,
I’m from the state of Alabama - that’s the equivalent of nine to 11
state of Alabama populations brought into America or legalized in
America over a short, 10-year
period of time - that’s a huge change,” Mr. Brooks said on Tim
Constantine’s Capitol Hill Show on The Washington Times radio.
“But
it was Republicans like Marco Rubio in the United States Senate who led
the effort to open the floodgates,” he said. “And he wasn’t alone, if
my memory serves me
correctly - there were roughly a dozen United States senators,
Republicans, who joined with Marco Rubio in that effort.”
Mr.
Rubio was an original member of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” group
that wrote the bill that passed the Senate on a bipartisan 68-32 vote in
2013, but later backed
away from the legislation and has advocated a piecemeal approach to the
issue.
“What
I’m saying to people is, we can’t do it in a massive piece of
legislation,” Mr. Rubio said this week on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “And I
know because I tried.”
Mr.
Rubio said if he were president, he would ask Congress to pass a
specific bill on the E-Verify program to prevent visa overstays and
improve border security, then
work on modernizing the country’s legal immigration system, and then
deal with the approximately 11 million people in the country illegally,
with people here longer than a decade able to get a work permit if they
pass a background check, learn English, pay
taxes, and pay a fine.
“And
after a substantial period of time in that status, assuming they
haven’t violated any of the conditions of that status, they would be
allowed to apply for legal residency,
just like anybody else would, not a special process. And after you’re a
legal resident, after a number of years, by law, you’re allowed to
apply for citizenship,” Mr. Rubio said.
“It’s
a long process. It’s a reasonable process. It’s a fair process. But it
has to happen in that order. And it begins with serious enforcement
measures,” he said.
But
many conservatives have been upset with Mr. Rubio’s handling of the
issue, and Mr. Brooks said the GOP has to make sure they elect the right
people on the issue.
“So
we in the Republican party first have to make sure that we elect
Republicans who believe in border security, who believe in the sanctity
of the borders of the United
States of America, and who understand that this huge influx of both
illegal alien labor coupled with lawful immigration is doing great
damage to American families who are having a hard time finding jobs,”
Mr. Brooks said.
Mr.
Brooks also said he was disappointed in House and Senate leadership on
the issue. A federal judge in Texas has halted President Obama’s
executive actions on immigration
that the president issued in November in the wake of a suit brought
forth by Texas and 25 other states.
“We
could have been on the leading edge of this instead of hoping that the
states would do our jobs, and right now the House and Senate leadership
have decided that in
order to placate the United States Chamber of Commerce, they’re going
to let the states do our job - the job of the United States Congress -
and that’s embarrassing and that’s shameful,” Mr. Brooks said.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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