Labrador: I can reform immigration, run for governor, 'walk and chew gum'

Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador, the new chair of a House subcommittee on immigration, told Idaho reporters Wednesday afternoon that he hopes to “fix the broken immigration system” between now and the end of his current two-year term, after which he’s running for governor rather than seeking re-election.

“I don’t think it’s limited time — I actually think it’s the perfect time,” Labrador said. “This is what I came to Congress to work on, is to modernize and fix the broken immigration system. This is a golden opportunity for me to do this while I’m also running for governor. I can walk and chew gum, I think I’ve shown that, at the same time.”

Labrador said, “You have the first term of a new president, you have the House and the Senate, and we can make the major reforms to the immigration system that we need to do, we can bring the immigration system into the 21st century … have a system that puts Americans first and looks at the needs of the United States, not the needs of people that are here illegally. So I’m excited about this, because it’s something I’ve been working on, I’m passionate about, and I’m the person in the House who is the expert in this area.”

Labrador, an immigration attorney, currently is sponsoring two bills: an immigration enforcement crackdown bill dubbed the Davis-Oliver Act, and a bill to limit refugee resettlement that cleared the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. He said taken together, the two measures are “major reforms to our current immigration system,” and said, “I think you guys have heard me talk about, for the last eight years, about how we need to do immigration reform in a step-by-step approach, we need to modernize the immigration system,” make sure local law enforcement can work with the system, and “make sure we vet refugees and other immigrants coming to the United States carefully. All of those things are being done by these two bills.”

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article158957049.html