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Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) on Immigration Reform: "We Need to Fix Once and For All the Whole Thing"

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Immigration reform is next on the national agenda in 2013. In the video below, Comcast NewsMakers with Robert Traynham speaks with Rep. Mario Diaz Balart (R-FL) about the prospects for real immigration reform in the 2013 Congress.  Watch:

As Diaz-Balart says, there is both a “window of opportunity—in the first year of the next Congress” and “enough members from both parties” to get immigration reform legislation done.  But reform must address all aspects of current immigration law; according to Diaz-Balart, it must not be done piecemeal.

“Do you solve something that’s broken from A to Z by fixing small things?” he asks in the interview.  “Or do you fix the whole thing?  I think we need to fix once and for all the whole thing.”

And while the Congressman notes that legislation must contain measures for border security and employer verification he also notes that reform must address the 800-pound gorilla in the room—the 11 million aspiring Americans who are already here.

“It would be a huge mistake to not incorporate them into American society in a reasonable way,” he says.  “We cannot have millions of people who are living in an underground society.”