A top U.S. Republican lawmaker said on Sunday he would support granting citizenship to children who are in the country illegally in a sign that conservatives who oppose immigration amnesty will be playing defense as Congress takes on immigration reform in the coming months.
Representative Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, said Congress could make quick progress on immigration if lawmakers agreed to give citizenship to children – an idea he opposed when it came up for a vote in 2010 as the DREAM Act.
“The best place to begin, I think, is with the children. Let’s go ahead and get that under our belt, put a win on the board,” Cantor said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Cantor is leading an effort to improve his party’s image as many Republicans worry they will be consigned to irrelevancy in coming years if they do not reach out to the fast-growing Latino electorate, which strongly supports immigration reform.
President Barack Obama has made immigration reform a top priority of his second term in office and a bipartisan group of senators is working to draft legislation that would tackle the issue in a comprehensive manner, rather than the piecemeal approach that Cantor suggested.
Republican Senator John McCain, who is involved in that effort, said his group aims to provide a path to citizenship for all of those who are in the United States illegally, not just children, as long as border security is tightened.
“There are 11 million people living in the shadows. I believe that they deserve to come out of the shadows,” McCain said on “Fox News Sunday.”
That could be a tough sell for many of Cantor’s Republicans in the House, who say it would amount to amnesty for those who willingly broke the law.
“We want to make sure we’re compassionate and sensitive to their plight – these kids know no other place as home. On the other hand, we are a country of laws,” Cantor said.
Cantor declined to say whether he would support a pathway to citizenship for adults as well. He could be forced to take a stand one way or the other if McCain and his colleagues manage to pass their legislation out of the Senate.
Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said Cantor’s support for citizenship for children was a positive sign. But he said his colleagues in the Senate would be pushing for more.
“I’ve met these young people, and they will tell you, yes, I want a future, but what about my mom and dad?” Durbin said on “Meet the Press.” “We’re not stopping with the DREAM act, we’re beginning with the DREAM act and pushing forward.”
(Reuters)
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3 Responses
The isn’t a big problem since if they have been raised here, and educated here at taxpayer expense they aren’t easy to deport. The country they left as a baby doesn’t really want them back, their siblings are typically citizens, and they are for all non-legal purposes Americans. Many aren’t even fully fluent in their parents language. It certainly makes more sense to offer a path to citizenship to someone who was raised and educated here, and is culturally more American than anything else, than to recruit someone who is a total foreigner.
The situation is different if they came to America as teenagers – but the cases that keep arising are ones that have been here since infancy.
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He has his head in a dark place!! If you grant them citizenship, what do you do with their ILLEGAL parents? Lock em up in jail where they should be? Deport the which is what should happen in most cases? What happens with the kids then?
The bottom line is they were born here illegally (their parents weren’t legally here) so they should also have to wait 25 years for citizenship.
STOP THE HANDOUTS!!
There has never existed a government in the history of civilization that is actively financing illegal immigration as is occurring in the US now. Illegals, that have absolutely no connection to this country, are receiving the gold card – Medicaid cards – that allow them a tremendous latitude of benefits that are unavailable to the majority of even third generation Americans. They receive money for rent, food, heathcare, get their children educated at no cost in schools, and even get full college educational scholarships from the government,and are eligible for a multitude of other goverment benefits without having to pay taxes or otherwise contribute to the welfare of the US. Many of these illegals have been expelled from their respective countries because these countries are all emptying their jails and riding themselves of their troublemakers and setting them free on the shores of the US. No one has any clue as to who any of these illegal aliens are – they have no documented history of any kind. The drain on the US to support, educate, provide health care for, and pay for all their needs will eventually relegate the US to a second rate society. There are estimated to be over 500 million foreigners who want to live in the US and they undoubtedly will be emboldened to come here now. This is the future that the politicians are willing to relegate us to.