Defeating the so-called DREAM Act must be a top priority before it provides an uncontrollable citizenship path to thousands of illegal immigrants, says Republican U.S. Rep. Steve King.
On the surface, the act would provide a road to citizenship for students who are illegal immigrants. But the Iowa Republican also noted that it would allow students to sponsor their extended families on that path.
“We calculated that a single individual could bring in 357 people on a family reunification plan before we ran out of room on our spreadsheet,” King says.
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Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may be able to push the act through the lame-duck session of Congress, King tells Newsmax.TV. But Republicans should be able to use the filibuster to kill it in the Senate, he says.
“This is an out-of-control immigration path,” King says. “We need to fence that in and limit it to direct family members.”
King also intends to introduce a bill next year making clear that babies born to illegal mothers in the United States aren’t American citizens because they aren’t subject to U.S. jurisdiction.
The most important issue after tax cuts is repealing Obamacare, he says. “There should be a [repeal] bill. We would bring it up and pass it several times a year to remind Americans where the votes are,” even though the bill would likely die in the Senate.
“So we must shut off funding in every appropriations bill that could be used to implement or enforce Obamacare,” King says. “Then in 2012 we need to elect a president whose first order of agenda is to sign a repeal of Obamacare.”
The role of the tea party is important in the quest, he says, adding that the voice of the grass-roots conservative movement “is going to be heard loud and clear in the repeal of Obamacare.”
As for the budget, he supports presumptive House Speaker John Boehner’s position to cut non-defense discretionary spending to 2008 levels.
“The rest of this takes hard work,” he says. “We need to go into appropriations subcommittees and give them assignments to cut certain portions of fat and let them go through line items. The hard work of government says we need to pick winners and losers.”
King also proposes that Congress be given a line-item veto.
On another volatile issue, he says the Transportation Security Administration should drop the scanner and pat-down searches for air travelers that have sparked such heated opposition. “Neither one is an acceptable alternative, so a lot of people will stop flying.”
King recommends profiling instead. “Profiling always has been an essential component of law enforcement,” he says. “You could put a score system out there with weighted calculations on who gets checked more closely.”
The criteria would include what country you are from, etc. Then a few people should be checked randomly, King says. “El Al does something similar when flying to Israel, and they haven’t had a hijacking since the early 1970s.”