Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID), a former member of the House immigration “Gang of Eight” and a supporter of immigration reform, said on Wednesday that given how President Barack Obama has handled himself during the recent fiscal debate, House Republicans should not negotiate with him on immigration legislation.
“Absolutely not,” the House should not go to conference with the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” bill, Labrador said in response to a question from Breitbart News at Conversations with Conservatives, a press event hosted monthly by the Heritage Foundation’s Rob Bluey.
“If the president is going to show the same kind of good faith effort that he’s shown over the last couple of weeks, then I think it would be crazy for the House Republican leadership to enter into negotiations with them on immigration,” Labrador said. “And I’m a proponent of immigration reform. So, I think what he has done over the last two and a half weeks – he’s trying to destroy the Republican Party. And I think that anything that we do right now with this president on immigration will be with that same goal in mind, which is to destroy the Republican Party and not get good policies. Like I said earlier, we agree on things on tax reform, we agree on things on entitlement reform, there are things that we are on the same page about and if he is unwilling to negotiate on those things I don’t see how he could in good faith negotiate with us on immigration.”
According to a Wednesday morning report from Reuters, President Obama told the Los Angeles affiliate of Spanish-language Univision that he plans a renewed push for amnesty the day after the ongoing fiscal battles in Washington conclude. “Once that’s done, you know, the day after, I’m going to be pushing to say, call a vote on immigration reform,” Obama said. “We had a very strong Democratic and Republican vote in the Senate. The only thing right now that’s holding it back is, again, Speaker Boehner not willing to call the bill on the floor of the House of Representatives.”
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