Utah Sen. Mike Lee says the bipartisan Gang of Eight is in danger of making the same mistakes of past immigration reform efforts by trying to do everything at once and putting illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship before we ever know if border security efforts are successful.
Lee is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and has waded through much of the 844-page bill. He says the biggest problem with the bill is that is doesn’t approach the key issues one at a time, which he believes is essential if Congress is going to do reform correctly.
“Immigration reform that I tend to envision would include real border security, visa modernization, employment verification, robust guest worker programs for high low-skilled workers and a compassionate approach to dealing with those people who are currently in the country illegally,” said Lee. “But history has taught us that each one of those vital components needs to be addressed incrementally and in sequence to ensure we get meaningful results, the kind of results that we want. And that’s why I’m concerned about this bill. That’s why, in it’s current form, I can’t support it.”
Lee was not overly critical of how the Gang of Eight addressed each of the issues he would take on separately, but he says doing everything at once is a prescription for disaster.
“I’m pleased that the bill does address as many of these issue as it does. The biggest concern I have is that it attempts to do so all in one fell swoop. In other words, it puts the legislative framework in place for a pathway to citizenship to the 11 million before we even know whether the border has been secured. Once we enact that legislation, then that’s in motion. That’s going to happen unless we legislate again, regardless of whether we in Congress are convinced that the border is in fact secure and that our visa system is working properly,” said Lee, who is worried that green-lighting the legal status of millions of illegals before confirming the border is secure would make our problems even worse.
“That is a very significant concern. That’s a concern that is based on historical experience, based on what we saw in 1986, when we ended up granting legal status to those illegally in the country at the time and putting them on a pathway to citizenship. The promise was made then, ‘OK, we’re going to secure the border once and for all. We’re going to solve the illegal immigration problem once and for all and, all at the same time, we’re going to legalize those currently here illegally.’ Of course, those who were here illegally were legalized but we didn’t fix the underlying problem,” said Lee.
Lee says he can’t gauge the level of support for the Gang of Eight plan yet because the bill still needs to go through the committee process. He suspects most Senate Democrats will back the plan but does not believe it can pass the Republican-led House of Representatives.
As a result, Lee says the smart thing would be for lawmakers to build a bipartisan consensus around smaller bills in a proper order to address the problems in our immigration system.