Iowa Congressman Steve King says he’s not happy with the immigration plan that passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. King, a republican, says the plan is not as good as the plan passed by the House. King says, “the Senate has apparently weakened some of the enforcement provisions that the House sent over there, and then added to it a temporary worker program that I think just cannot work.”
King says legalizing the illegal workers will overpower the system used to process them. King is also skeptical of the enforcement provisions in the Senate bill. He says, “They also seem to think they can get by with the ruse that if they add more enforcement provisions or approve some of our enforcement provisions, that they’ll actually be enforced, when there isn’t much history of that in the last eight years or so in this country.”
King says he’d like to see the House bill sent on to the President as it was passed. He says he’s concerned that the bill will pass the Senate with the temporary worker program, weakened enforcement, and a study on a border fence instead of a real fence. King says he’s worried the compromise bill would come out with those changes and pass the House.
King says he wants to see enforcement of immigration law before the illegal workers are legalized. King says it’s like having a child whose job it is to mow the law, but they haven’t mowed it for two years, but the child keeps coming to you for their allowance. King says his view is you see them mow the lawn, or prove they will enforce immigration law, and then you can talk about a temporary work program once they’ve proven they have an effective enforcement plan.
The full Senate will debate the immigration bill over the next several days. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says he voted against the bill in the judiciary committee.