USA Today Mischaracterizes Rep. Bachmann's Immigration Stance

USA Today recently put a negative spin on Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s position about the Senate’s immigration reform bill. The paper characterized her point as an attempt to “kill the immigration overhaul,” yet her points were more nuanced than that.

The paper claims that Bachmann “contends immigrants who came to the United States illegally shouldn’t be rewarded with legal status” and goes on to note that she opposes any of the current ideas being floated for immigration reform.

Bachmann has not said that she does not ever want to deal with the millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S. but that she simply wants to secure the border before any further discussion.

In a statement issued from her office on June 27, Bachmann noted that border security measures proposed in 1986 were never completed.

“I am confident my colleagues in the House will see the Senate’s legislation for what it really is–amnesty now, border security never,” she said.

The Senate’s amnesty legislation is symbolic of what’s wrong with Washington: A thousand-plus page bill, special backroom deals to buy votes and empty promises that won’t be fulfilled. It’s Obamacare all over again. Protecting America first must be our top priority, yet the Senate’s fake border security bill only ensures that we’ll throw billions of dollars at the border without any proof it will ever be secured. Have we learned nothing from 1986?

Bachmann has argued that too often these laws are made of empty promises and points to the Reagan-era amnesty bill as a perfect example. On the floor of the House on July 9, Bachmann made this clear.

What I fear is that if we combine [border security and amnesty] in so-called ‘comprehensive reform’ is we’re going to see selective enforcement and you’re going to pick and choose. We saw the President of the United States this week, twice, say that he is not going to enforce certain parts of Obamacare. Hey, fine with me. Don’t enforce any of it, but do it through the rule of law.

Bachmann and several other conservative House members have called for a special meeting of House Republicans to thoroughly debate the ideas surrounding immigration reform before any bills are presented.

“Legalization equals amnesty, which equals citizenship. And that is the must-have,” she said. “That’s the goal of the administration is legalization because they want tens of millions of voters to pay for, to vote for their agenda. That’s really what this is about. Everyone knows it. And it’s not about border security.”