Watch a Republican Congressman Sidestep a Really Straightforward Question About Immigration —
Is this Republican Congressman’s sidestepping about the way to deal with illegal immigration the sign of a continued reckless disregard for U.S. immigration law even when the Republicans are in power?
The best solution to illegal immigration is simple: deportation. End of debate. Apparently, even Republicans are bewildered and wholly indecisive on what to do in the face of blatant lawlessness. Let me give them a hint: post, Congressman, stop acting like a “stupid” American and enforce the damn laws! Yes, that means millions of people are going to be deported back to their homelands. — Jim Gilchrist
Bloomberg — Representative Tim Huelskamp, one of the most strident anti-illegal immigration Republicans in the House, bobs and weaves.
On Monday’s episode of “With All Due Respect,” Representative Tim Huelskamp, one of the most strident anti-illegal immigration Republicans in the House, refused to directly answer a question about what he would do about the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country. “If you were president,” host Mark Halperin asked the Kansas Republican, “and Congress would pass whatever you wanted, what would you do about … the 12 million who are in this country illegally?”
Huelskamp responded by saying he didn’t know exactly how many immigrants were in the country illegally, and then tried to pivot to the importance of border security. When Halperin pressed him again for a plan to handle undocumented immigrants in the U.S., Huelskamp said “nobody in Washington I know of is talking about deportation … That’s what the president would like us to talk about.”
Asked a third time for his solution, Huelskamp again questioned the number. “I want to know how many folks are here. I want to secure the border.”
“I want to know how many folks are here. I want to secure the border.”
Representative Tim Huelskamp
For Congressional Republicans fuming over President Obama’s proposed executive orders that could give upward of 5 million undocumented immigrants a reprieve from the prospect of deportation, Huelskamp’s answer is part of a familiar pattern in which the call to “secure the border” trumps any specific remedy for those already in the country illegally.
Back in January, following weeks of debate within the party, GOP House Speaker John Boehner rolled out a one-page draft of principles for immigration reform. At the top of the list was the demand that “border security and interior enforcement must come first.” But the light-on-specifics plan, which also proposed offering legal status to immigrants who admitted breaking the law, paid fines, learned English, and submitted to criminal background checks, was decried as “amnesty” by many in the party, and immigration reform stalled in Congress.
Since Obama announced over the summer that he intended to go it alone with new immigration orders following the midterm elections, Republicans have held off on offering new proposals in favor of debating how to thwart what they view as an out-of-control, imperial president.
