Rep. Mark Meadows said Tuesday that if Congress does not create a permanent solution for the DACA program, nearly 800,000 participants would face deportation.
"It's the rule of law," Meadows, a North Carolina Republican who chairs the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told Wolf Blitzer on CNN. "It's not a matter of what I think.
"I'm one member of 135 members.
"What we have to do is be a nation of laws, and we look to that. Do I want necessarily that to happen?
"It's time we move and we work on immigration."
Meadows said any definitive solution to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which former President Barack Obama created in 2010 by executive order, must be part of a comprehensive immigration reform agenda that also includes border security and e-Verify.
"I support the president's decision," he told Blitzer. "The president took decisive action.
"He did it in a way that gave Congress six months to deal with it.
"We have to start with border security and the wall," Meadows added. "If we have a comprehensive program that not only deals with our Southern border, it also looks in terms of e-Verify.
"With a merit-based legal immigration system, if we look into that, then I'm willing to look in a compassionate way of handling this DACA issue.
"There are a number of us that get painted into a corner," he added. "But finally we can deal with it.
"We've been dealing with this for years. It's time to deal with it."
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