Rand Paul to Discuss ‘Need for Immigration Reform’

Wall Street Journal – by Reid J. Epstein

Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) voted against the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill last year, but on Wednesday he plans to “discuss the need for immigration reform.”

Mr. Paul will join former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Partnership for a New American Economy’s monthly series on immigration reform hosted by Grover Norquist.  

Mr. Paul, who is openly considering mounting a 2016 presidential campaign, opposed the Senate bill and the prospect of “amnesty.” Mr. Bloomberg is, of course, one of the leading proponents of immigration reform, which the Partnership for a New American Economy aims to promote.

“He’s just going to talk generally about his ideas that he pushed in the Senate bill and some of the problems with the Senate bill and why it made so difficult to pass,” said Mr. Paul’s spokesman, Brian Darling. “There’s not going to be anything different in his message tomorrow that he hasn’t said already a million times.”

That message has been one in stark opposition to the Senate’s comprehensive reform bill – and still left Mr. Paul open to some kind of agreement.

“I do not support amnesty,” Mr. Paul’s Senate website states. “Immigrants should meet the current requirements, which should be enforced and updated. I realize that subsidizing something creates more of it, and do not think the taxpayer should be forced to pay for welfare, medical care and other expenses for illegal immigrants.”

Yet he has at times sounded optimistic tones about immigration reform. In April Mr. Paul told Harvard students reform could pass in 2014 if Democrats compromised.

The Kentucky senator has also spent significant amount of effort reaching out to constituencies typically not aligned with Republicans. He spoke last year at Washington’s Howard University and on Sunday opened a local Republican Party office in an African-American section of Louisville.

The Bloomberg group’s last call in the series hosted Tea Party Express co-founder Sal Russowho urged Congress to enact immigration reform this year.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/06/10/rand-paul-to-discuss-need-for-immigration-reform/

2 thoughts on “Rand Paul to Discuss ‘Need for Immigration Reform’

  1. It doesn’t matter what any of these lying dung-heaps says. They’re all kissing the same butt, and that means the cheap labor is here to stay until we kick ’em out of here.

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