At a Thursday press conference, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said it befuddles ordinary Americans outside the Washington, D.C. beltway why establishment Republicans and Democrats want to grant amnesty or legalization to the at least 11 million illegal immigrants in the country before securing the border.
To that effect, Bachmann said constituents have asked her why members of Congress have not just drafted and introduced a bill that focuses solely on securing the border. Congress could then deal with other parts of immigration reform later, once the critical law enforcement mechanisms, both at the border and in the interior of the country, are in place.
“Why aren’t they just introducing one bill that just says we need to fully secure the borders?” she asked. Bachman said she has been asked this question over and over again by her constituents in the past couple of weeks.
“People are very troubled when the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that they don’t even know what it means to be able to fully secure the border,” Bachmann said. “If we’re hearing those kinds of troubling statements from the administration, then this tells me that this is a fiction that the administration is making.”
Representative Bachmann recalled the promise Ronald Reagan made when he granted amnesty to one million undocumented persons. “In the mid-80s, he said we would secure the border. Here we are some 30 years later and that promise hasn’t been fulfilled. I believe it’s imperative that we help to fulfill that promise and then from there, have step two.”
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